


Till You Fill it With Me

by dynamicsymmetry



Series: Pacify [12]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Sex, Bathing/Washing, Bisexuality, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Choking, Collars, Corsetry, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Double Penetration, Face Slapping, Face-Fucking, Face-Sitting, Facials, Female Ejaculation, Femdom, Fingerfucking, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Incest Play, Lactation Kink, Marathon Sex, Master/Pet, Multi, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Polyamory, Rick is an Asshole, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, Vaginal Fisting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-15 19:01:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3458327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynamicsymmetry/pseuds/dynamicsymmetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So maybe it was a dream. Maybe it wasn't. But regardless, there's Beth and there's Daryl and then suddenly there's Rick, and... Things proceed from there.</p><p>(This is sort of a Pacify... AU. Kind of. Series universe; not part of series canon.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in your mouth loud and clear

**Author's Note:**

> AGAIN, IMPORTANT: While this is technically taking place within the Pacify universe, it should NOT be assumed to have actually happened. For a number of reasons. Call it an AU. Call it a dream sequence. Call it fanfiction of fanfiction. Regardless, the next Pacify installment will proceed as if this DID NOT HAPPEN. Because it didn't. Swear.
> 
> That said, here it is.
> 
> Title/soundtrack: FKA twigs' ["Hours".](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHp3FP4wbxQ)

Later it feels like a dream. Later she's sure it is.

Almost sure.

~

This is nothing unusual. Pulled back against the bed, practically back into his lap. She comes into the bedroom, early evening, and he meets her right there and takes her by the shoulders, spins her in his arms, and she puts up only a token struggle. She likes struggling against him now, likes it quite a lot, but though she wriggles and laughs here, and as he pulls her backward and down she can feel him smiling against the back of her neck, the edge of her ear...

He doesn't want her to struggle. Not this time.

He's shirtless, barefoot, but still wearing jeans. His hand finds her throat and holds her gently, and she arches, half dropped, letting out a slow breath. She sees the bedside light on, splash of illumination on the ceiling. She blinks, slow and heavy, and already she feels a little dazed. It was a long day, but she isn't tired. At least not anymore.

His free hand slides down over her belly to her fly, starts to pull it open. Her hips rock forward against his hand, almost entirely instinct; she can't discern yet whether he means to just fuck her or whether he wants to make this more complicated, but if she's gone loose and pliant for the moment, there's still a core of tension in her. She's ready to respond. She's ready to move.

Because by now she's very, very good at this.

But it's as he's sliding a hand into her jeans, fingers pushing between her legs and the tip of one finding her clit, that she realizes what's really different about it.

She left the door open.

She freezes. "Daryl, I-"

"Shh. Don't." He holds her more firmly, hand low on her neck; he's not tightening his grip, not choking her, but he's very clearly invested in holding her in place, and while she's not frightened and she's not about to stop all of this yet...

The _door_ is fucking _open._ And fucking outside in the dark is one thing, being made to play with herself behind a building is one thing, but this, though it's more private than either of those places, this...

Carl isn't here, but...

"Daryl, we can't just-" And he releases her neck and touches her lips, and suddenly she starts to understand. A little. A little of it, a little of what's happening. A little of what's coming for her. It slams into her, sharp and hot, like the flat of his hand, and just like when he slaps her she simultaneously winces away from it and presses harder into it, aching and wanting. Needing.

She could shake her head. She wouldn't even have to say the word. She could shake her head and he would release her, close the door, and that would be that.

She doesn't shake her head.

She nods.

He laughs. It's barely anything, barely a breath, but it sends warmth all through her, and heat chases it. Without thinking, without even really meaning to, she spreads her legs wider and rocks against his hand, forgetting everything else just for a moment, needing that pressure. The rough of his fingers. She's let go of the door. The door can stay open. And like this, facing it with her legs wide and Daryl's hand slipping down to cup and knead her breast through her shirt, it's like doing all those things outside...

And more. More than that. Suddenly it's hard to breathe, and he doesn't even have his hand on her throat.

Noise in the living room. In the hall. She arches, lets out a strangled little gasp, desperate in about four or five different ways. She does struggle now, just a bit, and when she wriggles her ass against him she feels his cock pressed hard and thick against her.

_Oh, God._

"Daryl, please." Not even sure what she's asking for. Because now someone is coming, heavy footfalls, and did he plan this? Or is this spontaneous? Who is exactly is going to be surprised here?

Does it matter?

She thinks maybe it doesn't. Probably not. Not when she looks up and manages to focus, and as Daryl is pushing up her shirt and pushing down her jeans, she meets Rick's eyes.

Rick, standing in the doorway. Looking at her. Just... Looking.

She whimpers. She's never seen him look at her like that, never, and if Daryl gripped her jaw right now and demanded that she explain how it makes her feel, she couldn't hope to get as far as even one word.

Wet. She does know that much. Wet and drowning in heat, and Daryl must be able to feel it, because when he snakes a finger into her panties again and probes her, he lets out another soft huffing laugh.

"Get those boots off."

His voice is low, rough, coaxing, and when he speaks she's _sure_ she sees the corner of Rick's mouth twitch.

She shoves at the heel of one with the toe of the other, kicks it away, clumsily manages to take care of the one remaining. Through it all Daryl holds her, stretching her back, her hands braced on his thighs. She could almost fall, but he won't let her, and as soon as her boots are off he's shoving again at her jeans, down her hips, down her thighs, and _Christ,_ she can't stop staring at Rick.

Who's still just... _looking_ at her.

Like she's on display for him.

Something is happening to her. Maybe it's Rick's eyes. Maybe it's the increasing feeling of surreality, like this isn't even _happening._ She can't move... Or maybe she just doesn't want to. Daryl pulls her shirt off over her head and she goes with it, shrugging it away, lips parted and mouth dry, and when he finishes getting her jeans and panties down her legs she steps out of them without protest.

And she's naked, and he's pulling her harder backward, hauling her against him with an arm around her chest, one leg hooking around her calf and tugging her leg back, spreading her wider, and Rick is still just _looking._

And that's when it starts to feel real.

She breathes something that might be his name, and he moves forward, pulling off his shirt as he comes to her.

Okay, all right: she's thought about this. It's not crazy. She would be crazy _not_ to. She did as far back as the prison, of course she did, but that was a little schoolgirl crush, that was _nothing,_ and it certainly never got as far as this. She watches him as he strips to the waist, watches the flex and pull of muscle, and she's always felt how much bigger than her Daryl is, how much stronger, but now she sees it in _Rick_ in a way she never has.

Thinks about feeling that. Thinks about being pressed between them.

And the moan that escapes her is long and hard and grating.

He's there, stepping close, moving to stand between her spread legs, and she can still feel Daryl's cock pressing against her ass, still feel his grin against the nape of her neck, and when Rick's gaze flicks briefly past her she knows they're looking at each other...

And _that_ does something to her she has no idea how to define.

But she isn't thinking about it anymore when Rick touches her.

It's light. Gentle. It's almost - _almost_ \- innocent. A fingertip along her collarbone, warm and calloused as Daryl's but somehow different. Somehow not like his at all. She bites her lip and tries to press closer, just into that small of a touch, and she sees him smile and a fresh pulse of heat moves through her. Because his hand is moving too, down over her chest, her left breast, tracing her, circling her nipple with his thumb and it's right about then that she completely stops caring about whether this is or isn't a dream.

Not exactly a schoolgirl crush anymore. No.

"Rick," she breathes, and he looks up at her even as his hand slides lower, fingertips oddly delicate against her ribs, and he tilts his head slightly, smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

There are things you want, so intensely, that you never recognize until they're standing right in front of you.

Daryl's hands are also moving, arms hooking up under hers, holding them fast. Holding her pinned against him, secure as if she was tied, only one leg free - and she doesn't want to try to block Rick, what he's doing, fingers trailing down over her tight curls and brushing just - just _barely_ \- against her clit.

Exploring her. He's exploring her. Like Daryl did, in compressed time. Her mouth drops open and she moans. "Please."

Rick's eyes flick back up to meet Daryl's, and - maddeningly - his hand freezes. "She always like this?"

Daryl shakes his head. She can't see him, can't feel his mouth, but she can hear the smile in his voice. "You got _no_ idea."

"I'm right _here,_ " she gasps, half annoyed and half close to laughter, trying to get enough leverage to press herself against his fingers, but he laughs and withdraws his hand, and she makes a tight little sound of frustration.

"Yeah, I know," Rick murmurs, tilts her head up and kisses her.

She wasn't expecting that.

In fairness, she wasn't expecting _any_ of this.

It's soft. Gentle. She sighs into it, angles her head, parts her lips and tastes him. His hands aren't like Daryl's and neither is this, and she couldn't rank them if her life depended on it, but it's so sweet. All of her awareness floods into it and for the span of a few breaths she forgets everything else.

Then his fingers push into her and everything else snaps back into focus.

She doesn't stop kissing him. He doesn't _let_ her stop kissing him, cupping the side of her face with his free hand, and she doesn't _want_ to stop kissing him. This time her moan is hard and needy, muffled by his lips and his tongue, and as she feels his hand withdraw and press in again, fucking slowly in and out of her, she hears Daryl breathe _oh, fuckin' hell_ in a vaguely awed voice.

Held between them. Pressed between them. Trapped. Nowhere else in the entire world she would rather be.

Finally she can't even hold her head up anymore, and he releases her and she drops back against Daryl's shoulder, panting in shallow little breaths. Her hips are still trying to roll with it, trying to chase Rick's hand, but Daryl holds her tight, leg and arms like iron bands, and she stays in his grip and the helplessness that floods through her is burning and sweet and absolutely wonderful.

And it occurs to her that this is... all for her.

Maybe they've got her like this, like they're going to... fuck, like they're going to _share_ her, but this is for her.

Well.

"What d'you want?" Daryl's voice is almost a purr in her ear. He rocks slowly against her back and she hears him pull in a slow breath; he's hard enough that he has to be at least half as crazy by now as she is.

She doesn't know. Fuck, she doesn't know anything. This. More. All. She's thinking in single syllables. She lets out a low whine and turns her head, her lips brushing Daryl's jaw. She doesn't need to look at Rick to know he's staring at her.

Daryl's grip on her tightens. _Say it._

"I want him to fuck me," she whispers, and it's not anything _like_ the only thing she wants, but it's all she can find. All she can shape into words.

"Tell him, then."

Somehow she manages to lift her head. Her clit is getting no pressure like this, no friction, and it's driving her _insane_ but at the same time she feels like if he just went a little faster, a little harder, maybe she could come from that alone. Somehow.

"Rick." Taut. Almost panicked. She meets his gaze; still that tilted head, still that little smile.

"Yeah?"

 _I hate you._ "Fuck me," she breathes.

His hand is gone so suddenly she lets out a soft huff of exasperation - but then he's stripping off his pants, naked and lean and hard and cock jutting up glistening, and it's a very good thing that she asked for what she wanted before all this because now she's completely incoherent.

She's conscious of Daryl moving her like a doll. Shifting her higher - _moving her into position,_ she thinks, lets out a broken sob, and Rick slides his hands behind her knees, lifts and spreads her legs, thrusts into her.

She cries out. She can't help it. It's not that it hurts; it's not that at all, because it doesn't hurt, it feels... She doesn't even know. She's been fucked plenty of times by now, hard and soft and everything in between, fucked quick and left burning and fucked so long and so thoroughly that she's sore for a full day after. This isn't even anything new.

But it totally is. Daryl's chest at her back, arms strong on her, pinning her still, and Rick finding a rhythm, even and steady and deep.

Not hurried. Like he has nowhere else to be.

"Rick," she hears herself gasp - like she's half removed, half not even here anymore. "Rick, Rick, oh my _God..."_

"Like that," Daryl murmurs, and he sounds achingly pleased. Halfway to a moan himself. His hips are rolling, matching Rick's movements. Pushing her forward in sync. "God, just like that."

"Look at me." Rick's hand on her jaw, light, gently, turning her face to his. "C'mon." He's so close - and this look, or something like it, _this_ she thinks she's seen, when he's trying to ground someone, bring them down, center them, focus them on him. Almost soothing. Almost. But she doesn't need soothing. She looks at him, teeth caught on her lip, tiny little whimpers streaming almost constantly out of her.

Looks at him and feels Daryl's hand snaking down between them, fingers slow, teasing, and she knows she's supposed to be good for him, knows she's supposed to be a good girl - _for both of them, for both of them, God -_ but she's just about at the point of calling him an asshole at the top of her lungs.

He's circling her clit. Almost enough. Not touching her. Rick still slow, still unhurried; somehow, some part of her that's still coherent enough to be amused thinks this is exactly how Rick _would_ fuck someone when he wants to drive them nuts. She wants to hook a leg around him and basically kick him into her, wants to antagonize him into fucking her harder, make him want to _punish_ her the way she sometimes goads Daryl into it, but Rick is shaking his head and Daryl is shaking his head and they're fucking _grinning_ at each other. She can feel it.

"Ask for it."

"What?" The word comes out sounding honestly distressed. She tries to crane her neck, tries to see Daryl's face, but he's still out of her sight. His hand moves again and she looks down, and it's almost enough just to see that, because Daryl's fingers aren't on her anymore but instead tracing over the base of Rick's cock with a lazy kind of fascination.

And something in Rick's eyes snaps. Hard. Only for a second, like a spark flaring and gone. But she knows she saw it.

She knows it was there.

"You know the rules. You gotta ask."

 _Oh, fuck._ She does. She does and she's not sure she can, her breath fast and tight and loose again and tightening into something irregular, Daryl shoving her onto Rick's cock with his hips, and how are words even supposed to _happen_ right now?

They'll happen because they have to. Her mouth drops open and she sobs. "Please... Let me come, Daryl, Daryl, God, _please._ "

Daryl's fingers find her clit and move, quick and expertly nimble, and her back arches into a bow as it surges through her, a single powerful wave slamming into her and wrenching her mouth wide, and she cries out as Rick fucks her through it and Daryl catches her ear with his teeth and shakes with silent laughter.

And she realizes she doesn't have to worry about being quiet this time.

She drifts back down, loose, no muscle tension, and she half expects it to stop, but it doesn't. Rick hasn't even paused, hasn't broken his steady rhythm. But Daryl's grip on her arms has eased, and his fingers are turning small circles around her nipples, sending a warm buzz all through her, something lose to a shiver.

The sound that comes out of her is low and hoarse and a little confused - more confused when Rick slides out of her. She looks up at him, about to at least _attempt_ to ask what's going on, but Daryl has her like he does when he's moving her, putting her where he wants her, turning her in his arms and pulling her up onto the bed. Sliding back. Releasing her onto her hands and knees and unfastening his own jeans. There's nothing especially odd about the lamplight, but the shadows it throws on him - muscles and scars and the lines of his bones and all the parts of him she already knows so well - are beautifully strange. She watches him as he strips, vaguely entranced, and when she feels Rick's hands on her hips she presses back against them almost absently.

Somehow she already knows how this is going to go.

When Daryl shifts forward on his knees, fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, and slides a hand into her hair, she parts her lips and takes him in with a soft, pleased sound. Because this is what she does.

And when Rick takes her by the waist and pushes into her from behind, she takes that too.

It all sort of bleeds together. It's like nothing else, nothing she ever expected to feel - Daryl's hands in her hair, tugging at her as he fucks her mouth in hard, shallow little thrusts, his breath already starting to come rough and ragged, and Rick behind her, one hand big and warm and solid on her back, and this time he's not going so slow. Maybe he started that way, maybe at first it was the same, but his hand is tight on her hip, fingers digging into her, and this thrusts are deeper, harder, like he's trying to show her something. Trying to _demonstrate_ something. What he can do to her, if he wants.

She wonders distantly if he's wanted to do this for a while.

She moans, muffled, her arms shaking just a little, but she won't drop, and they won't let her. It's like the sound of their breathing is holding her up, hard exhales that almost stray into groans, a wave of incredible soft noise that washes into and out of her head, beating gently on her like a shore as deep and profoundly alien pleasure ripples through her. And then there _is_ a groan, heavy and somehow a little weak, and she manages to get her eyes open, manages to look up as the movement of Daryl's hips stutters and almost ceases.

And she can't even process.

Rick's hand sliding into Daryl's hair. Close. Bending over her, one hand braced on her lower back. Pulling him in, pulling them together. One of Daryl's hands slips free of her, finds Rick's chest, spreads over his heart. She sees Daryl's mouth falling open and that spark flaring to life behind Rick's eyes.

And the sound Daryl makes when Rick seals their mouths together is like nothing she's ever heard.

It's a circuit, she thinks, groping for Daryl's hip as she takes him deeper, pushing back against Rick, because God, she wants them both so bad now, she wants to be _filled_ with them. It's like a circuit, something charged running all through them in a circle, watching them kiss, watching how Daryl seems to be crumpling under it, pushed down though he hasn't moved - except for his hips, still unsteady, something quick and almost frantic in him that she recognizes even without his fingers pulling tight in her hair.

"C'mon," Rick breathes, and he sounds _hungry._ "Lemme see you." His hand in her hair too, both of them, holding her, Daryl holding on for dear life and Rick guiding her. And what rolls through her then is something like a grin that touches every part of her except her mouth.

Rick is an _asshole._

"Make him come, Beth." Like the words are enough. And they are, because she looks up again as her tongue swirls around the head in that way she knows brings him to the edge and often shoots him over it, and she sees Rick's teeth catch Daryl's lip, and Daryl convulses and _sobs,_ sobs like he makes her do, twisting and broken and totally out of control. He floods her mouth, hot and thick, and she can barely swallow fast enough, gripping his hip and aching with the effort of staying up.

And Rick is still fucking her.

Another shudder, violent, a hard whine, and Daryl pulls free of her, releases her, almost falls. But Rick hasn't let go, hand still tangled in Daryl's hair, and while he's gentle when he slides out of Beth and nudges her aside, there's no gentleness in how he's touching this man who has made it his business, over the past few months, to dominate her in almost every way possible.

He's weak now.

Her cunt feels too empty, her jaw aching, and one hand slips between her legs and works at her clit as she pushes herself up on one hand and watches Rick shove Daryl down onto his hands and knees.

"C'mere." Pulling Daryl by the grip in his hair. Beth shifts closer, feels an oddly satisfied smile tugging at her mouth. Serves him right, for all those times he tormented her. Teased her for hours and didn't let her come. Made her beg for it, made her crawl, and the fact that she loved it more than she'll ever know how to say only makes seeing this that much sweeter.

Because all she has to do is catch a glimpse of Daryl's face to know he's feeling pretty much the same way.

She lifts her gaze to Rick's, and what she sees there - what flickers between them - is almost conspiratorial.

He lifts his free hand, slides it around the back of her neck. "You too. Get over here." His hand over hers between her thighs, fingers stilling hers.  "Lemme do that." And sure, he's ordering her around; makes sense that he would. But like everything else it's different from Daryl. Not better. Just... Daryl has edges. He's rough. Even now he's clearly still working things out. 

What Rick is doing feels practiced. Smooth.

"Wait." She can say that to him. Can say it and he'll hold off. She knows it. She leans over Daryl and combs her own hand into his hair, joining Rick's, and she just catches the edge of a look from him as she guides his head forward, guides his mouth to Rick's cock.

She is going to _get it_ tomorrow. She is going to get it _hard._

She can tell he's never done this before. He's hesitant as Rick rocks his hips, pushes in, and she laughs as she gives him another tug, keenly aware that he's tasting her as he sucks.

"Ain't complicated."

Okay, so she can _also_ be an asshole.

"Beth."

She goes to him, presses close, pushing up on her knees as his hand finds her cunt, one hand braced on his shoulder and one still in Daryl's hair - stroking through it, encouraging him, half watching him as he takes Rick deeper, his eyes slipping closed. Rick's head lolls back, mouth just slightly open, and when he murmurs Daryl's name...

Maybe this wasn't all just for her.

She rolls forward in a smooth undulation, already close, and she wants it to be _him,_ and she doesn't want to ask permission. And she doesn't need to. Rick pushes a finger into her, thumb on her clit, fucking her somehow both slow and rough, and that's all she needs. Everything tightens, everything expands, and she gasps a strangled combination of both of their names as the hand in Daryl's hair stops being about encouragement and becomes about just keeping herself upright, pleasure shaking her by the backbone.

She doesn't _have_ to stay upright. Rick is pulling her against him, mouth hard on hers, muffling his own deep groan as he stiffens and arches and shudders. The sound Daryl makes is harsh, sort of desperate, but Rick turns his head away and stares down, holds him there, hisses in a breath and gasps, "Fuck, take it, Daryl, _take it-_ "

And he does. Beth watches, amazed, as he does.

Everything kind of tumbles apart.

Rick releases him, pulls free, and Daryl collapses onto his side, staring up at both of them, lips swollen and wet and his eyes a little unfocused. A little stunned. It takes no planning and no decision-making skills, which is good, because she doesn't have any; Beth drops beside him and presses herself along his side, turns his face to hers. He _can_ focus, then. He focuses on her, and he almost smiles, even if no other part of him seems capable of movement.

She kisses him, slow, and she knows he's not the only one she's tasting.

She likes that. So she keeps doing it. And the world eases and settles.

Warm solidity against her back, an arm around her. She sighs against Daryl's mouth and presses against it but otherwise doesn't move. She doesn't want to, held between them again. Doesn't have to. Rick's lips against the back of her neck, her shoulder, easy and purposeful. Daryl curling his fingers loosely into her hair as his mouth slides down to her jaw. Legs sliding between hers, tangled. Soft, deep sighs. Everything just... a sea of it, warm and sweet. She could float. She could lose herself. There is nothing outside this. No one else. The whole world is in this room - which has always been true, when she and Daryl are together this way.

That world is just a little bigger now, is all.

~

Maybe it was a dream.

Maybe.


	2. master of all of your needs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blah blah like usual not Pacify canon didn't happen dream sequence tangent universe etc 
> 
> enjoy

Watching Rick push a finger into him is one of the strangest things Beth has ever seen.

Strange because she has no idea how to describe what Daryl’s face is doing. What’s blooming through it, a total confusion of feeling all bleeding into itself, blurry, tangled. Pain, a little. Fear, a little. A kind of loosening, giving in, almost a kind of _giving up_ she’s never seen in him before. Wouldn’t have. He’s always bringing that out in her. Coaxing her toward it, toward a place where she can surrender like that, let go, and it feels so good.

So she also sees something like pleasure there. Or something that might become it, given time.

Rick is going slow, achingly slow - or she aches too, and isn’t sure exactly why. Looking at Daryl, not just his face but his whole body, his legs spread and lifted, head thrown back, arms stretched over his head. Tied, like he does to her. He didn’t just agree to this, he _wanted_ it, or seemed like that, wanted it and seemed a little frightened by the wanting, but Rick also clearly wanted it, and since the first time, since Rick forced him onto his hands and knees and she watched Daryl take his cock, his come, this has been here.

He’ll do anything for Rick. Anything.

She’s a little surprised to find that she isn’t jealous.

Or maybe not all that surprised, actually.

She’s kneeling beside Daryl, and when Rick pushes into him, one hand flat on his belly - holding down and grounding both at once, she thinks - she lowers herself, presses herself along his side, strokes her hand over his chest and up to his neck, his cheek. She grazes her lips down his jaw. She can feel his pulse, his heart - frantic.

He’s tense. He’s too tense.

"Easy," Rick murmurs, and he sounds almost gentle. "Breathe. You gotta breathe." His gaze flicks up to Daryl’s face, then to Beth, and he’s smiling just a bit. "Don’t you die on me."

She kisses him again, soft. She still isn’t entirely sure what her role in this will be, but she’s willing to take guidance. She’s good at that. Rick is good at it, she’s discovering, and this doesn’t surprise her in the least.

She breathes a laugh against Daryl's mouth, pulls back to look down at him, leaning up on one elbow. Combs a hand through his hair. “What’s it feel like?”

He shivers. Moans, quiet and thick. She’s not sure he can talk at all. She laughs again, glances down his body to where Rick is kneeling between Daryl’s legs; his hand is moving back, pushing so slowly in again, and she bites her lip, grinds herself against Daryl’s side and feels wet heat rolling into her cunt.

Daryl has never done this to her. Been in her this way.

Maybe now that might change.

"You’re alright," she whispers, lips just touching his ear. He’s done this to her, encouraged her in the midst of things, reassured her, praised her. Told her she’s doing so well, that she’s so brave, so strong, that he’s so proud of her. "You’re doin’ so good. Just relax. Just do that." Her hand sliding back down his chest, his belly, feeling his muscles quiver. Finding Rick’s hand, covering it, feeling that they’re holding Daryl between them, helping him into this place, and she didn’t expect it to feel like this.

Didn’t expect to feel so overwhelmed, looking at him now, by just how much she loves him.

She thinks she understands, a little more, what he feels when he’s doing it to her. She understands why he never did it before, why he was so afraid of it at first, and then why and how he learned to love it so much.

It goes on for a while. Rick is moving a bit harder, a bit faster, still careful but clearly edging Daryl toward being able to take more. Now and then she spends a little time watching him instead, the concentration on his face, the focus, and a deep pleasure she’s never seen there either. The pleasure, maybe, of pushing someone further than they’ve been.

Maybe also of seeing _Daryl_ find his own pleasure, why perhaps he wanted this, because that’s taking over, she can see it on his face: not just loosening but something deeper and hotter, and he’s starting to move his hips a little, responding, chasing Rick’s hand. Chasing more of it. He wasn’t hard when this started - hard before but lost it once Rick started working him open - but that’s changing, and she lowers her hand again, lets out a breath when she wraps her fingers around him and feels his weight. His heat.

He _likes_ this. Likes it. Maybe she wouldn’t have really believed it, but it’s literally in front of her.

"Think you can take two?" Rick hasn’t stopped moving but he’s looking up, intent. "Not gonna do it unless you say."

Daryl doesn’t answer, and again she thinks maybe he can’t at all. Maybe he’s not even focused enough to respond. He doesn’t _look_ focused, eyes squeezed shut, his lips parted and his breath coming in shallow gasps, neck still arched. He’s clutching at the ropes wrapped thick around his wrists and binding him to the bed, like he has to hold on or he’ll tumble into the air.

It’s funny, she thinks. The whole damn thing is pretty funny, because it’s ludicrous, because it’s completely unexpected, because it’s crazy how much she wants it and she had no idea.

Or did she? She’s not sure.

"Daryl." She touches his face again, and then - instinct joining impulse - she touches his lips. He responds to that without thinking now. Maybe he will too.

_Remember?_

His word. Not just hers.

Still nothing. He moans again and she feels the flick of his tongue against the pad of her forefinger, and she thinks that he’s called her a _slut_ now, that she loved it, and with a hot little shudder she thinks maybe she’s not the only one to whom the word applies.

That this is in him. That maybe it always was, buried so deep he didn’t know. _Jesus_.

His eyes open. Bright. Tears shining in them. And he focuses on her, and slowly he nods.

Rick lets out a breath, and she doesn’t have to see it to know when he presses in with two, because Daryl stiffens and a soft cry pushes out of him - and then a long wave rolling through him as he forces himself to give again, to relax.

Rick pauses, waiting. Then resumes his slow, even movements.

Beth keeps stroking him, equally slow. He’s still hard. If anything he’s harder. She grins, leans in, arches her mouth against his and swallows his moans. This is working out better than she expected, and she didn’t exactly expect it to not work out well.

"You can take it," Rick says, and she can hear his smile, and it’s contagious. "You can."

Time stretches out. It can’t be that long but she’s losing herself in it, in everything Daryl’s clearly slipping into, in kissing him and feeling him practically melting into it, loose and hot and gasping. In what’s going to happen to him. In what he has to be understanding now, because if she knows a little of how he feels, this has to be a _revelation_ for him. Her hips are still rocking in a slow grind, just enough pressure and friction to keep her simmering, and she could slide a hand between her thighs and give herself something more, but she wants to hold off. Let that simmer rise. Make it better when she finally gives that to herself.

Or when Rick allows her to have it.

"You ready?" Low. Husky. And as she lifts her head, looks down at Rick - at the way he’s breathing, his eyes, naked skin practically glowing in the lamplight, and it hits her again how rough and strong he is but how different from Daryl, how she gets to have both of them, and again she wants so badly to push her hand between her legs and work her clit with her fingers, not even make herself come, just…

"Daryl?" Rick flashes a grin, both amused and pleased; he’s clearly not worried about the answer actually being _no_. "Beth, you think you can…"

She can. Warmth all through her, not quite like the heat of before. She’s this close to him. She can touch him like this, reach into him and take him into her hand. Take care of him. She never fully realized it until now.

She touches his lips. He trembles. Nods.

It’s like a dream. Sometimes she thinks it still is. Against Daryl’s side, _hurting_ with how much she wants to be touched, watching Rick press Daryl’s legs further back, folding him, slicking and taking his own cock into his hand. Gaze moving over Daryl’s arching body, darkly hungry. His own kind of need. Letting out a breath and pressing forward, slow.

In.

Not a cry this time. Just a choked gasp, and for a brief moment Daryl’s eyes are open and wide and he looks almost panicked, and he looks fucking _exalted_. His hands are gripping the ropes so hard his knuckles are white, muscles in his arms standing out corded and sharply defined, and he’s not pulling away but arching up to meet what Rick is doing to him, and Beth doesn’t know if she’s ever seen anything more beautiful than this.

As beautiful, sure. But nothing surpassing. This is right at the top.

She murmurs his name, stroking him through it, scattering open-mouthed kisses down his jaw to his throat. His pulse again, hammering in his veins. She presses her tongue into the hollow of his throat, feels it, and he whimpers something that might be her name. Sobs something that might be Rick’s.

And Rick starts to move.

Still careful. Slow. Gentle, as gentle as anyone could be when they’re doing this. His head is tipped slightly forward, mouth open and breathing hard, and for a moment she sees, fully, how lost he himself could get in this. He’s playing it cool, has been since the beginning, playing it like he’s in charge, and he _is_ … But he’s not immune.

Daryl has a way about him. She knows this. It’s there when he’s hard, rough, dominant.

It’s apparently there when he’s letting everything go.

He’s moving with Rick, arching up and falling back, a little unsteady, a little awkward, but he’s still doing it, responding that way, and as she stares down at him, a smile pulling at her mouth, she realizes he’s fucking himself onto Rick’s cock, all fear gone and just wanting more of it.

She could say things to him. Things he’s said to her. Things she fucking loves to hear, that completely undo her. _Slut, you just can’t get enough._

They crowd onto her tongue. But she can’t quite. She’s brave, but maybe some things are still a little out of her reach, and she feels something like frustration, but it doesn’t stick around.

Probably all she needs is some time.

Some practice.

"Beth." Rick sounds slightly breathless, panting as he moves just a bit faster. There’s that dark, hungry look in his eyes again, the faint hardness that comes when he decides he wants someone to do something and tells them so. "Why don’t you get on his face?"

It shouldn’t shock her. It’s not like it’s anything new. But it _is_ new, and she stares at him for a few seconds as the immensity of how it would be, how it would _look_ , floods over and into her. She lets out a soft whimper, and Rick doesn’t quite laugh.

"What, you don’t want to?" He nods at Daryl. "Go on."

She looks down and Daryl’s eyes are open again, locked onto her, and when he licks his lips there’s actually a flash of something, something from when it’s just the two of them. From when he’s pushing her down, holding her down, making her. Forcing her. _Do it,_ he’s saying without speaking. _Be a good girl for me._

She swallows hard, and she does it.

His mouth opens beneath her as she straddles him, lowers herself enough for him to reach her, and when his tongue swipes her, broad and rough against her clit, she gasps and leans forward, hands braced on his chest and trying not to press down so hard she smothers him. All that heat is imploding into a single bright point and she shudders, lifts her head, stares up at Rick, and the asshole is _grinning_ at her, thrusting in earnest now, and she grits her teeth and thinks, not for anything _like_ the first time, _I hate you._

No, she doesn’t.

Her head droops forward and she rocks down against Daryl’s mouth, his swirling tongue, everything tensing in her and releasing and tensing again. She has no idea how long she’ll be able to hold on like this but Rick said to do it, _Daryl_ said to do it, and when Rick leans forward and low and tangles his fingers in her hair and tilts her head up, covers her mouth with his and nudges her lips apart, she knows how completely lost she is. How this whole business is hopeless, if she had any thought at all of resisting _any_ part of it.

And why the fuck _would_ she?

 _Look_ at this.

She sobs, thick and heavy, sucking at his tongue, and maybe that gives him an idea or maybe he had it already in mind, but either way he abruptly breaks the kiss and that hand in her hair is pushing her down, and she knows exactly where he wants her to go. He mouth is already open for it, the way sometimes she just needs it so bad she can’t handle it, and when she takes Daryl’s cock into her mouth a sharp, muffled whine wrenches out of him.

She smiles, best she can, and above her she hears Rick breathe “ _Fuck_ , yeah.”

So everyone is happy.

She’s not gentle with him now. He’s not being gentle with her, teeth briefly scraping against her clit and making her twitch, and Rick isn’t either, thrusting hard and fast and panting, almost groaning. Once again it all blurs together, the surging sine waves of heat in her cunt, the way she can practically _feel_ how wet she is, how Daryl must be pretty much _drowning_ in her. The noises he’s making, the way his body is shuddering under her, under both of them, how he would probably be writhing if he could move that much.

And it’s all too much, she’s being propelled forward, shoved by it all, Rick’s hand clenched in her hair and holding onto her as she slides her lips up and down, and she can’t ask. She can’t possibly be expected to do that. She can’t possibly be expected to control it. She tenses, tightens everything, grinds down hard on Daryl’s face and digs her nails into his thighs, and it crashes in on her, singing in her head.

Then there’s that sine wave, and she’s dipping back down and roaring up again, another crash, and she sobs around Daryl’s cock, in her own ears almost pained. _C’mon_ , Rick might be saying, _Just like that, girl, that’s fuckin’ perfect, you’re so goddamn perfect,_ and she can’t stop shaking. Neither can Daryl, and she hears another sharp whine and he floods into her mouth, bucking up with his whole body, tongue thrusting into her cunt like he wants so bad to fuck her with it.

She hasn’t taken all of it. Her head drops to the side and some of his come spills onto her lips, her chin, onto Daryl’s belly, and for the first time she really focuses on Rick and his cock and how it looks now, fast and so rough, filling Daryl over and over and completely relentless. She lifts her head, stares up, and Rick’s head falls back and his features twist into a grimace as he convulses once, twice, hissing _Daryl, Daryl, Jesus Christ,_ fuck.

Everything tumbles down.

She’s not sure how long that frozen collapse goes on. At some point she rolls onto the bed, on her back with her legs fallen open, staring blankly up at the ceiling as her hand gropes weakly between her thighs. She’s absolutely soaked, and for a few seconds she’s only aware of herself, the residual trembling in her muscles - trembling with potential, because she settles her fingers onto her clit and circles, presses down, and one more wave of it shivers through her, smaller than the others but twisting her breath into a knot in her throat.

Rick moving somewhere. Pulling back, pulling away, pausing for a moment and heaving breath. Crawling up Daryl’s body, leaning over him, hands sliding into his hair. She tries to push herself up on her elbow, somehow manages it, and watches them kiss, soft and slow.

She could be part of that. She could. She pushes herself up further, rolls back to them and leans in. They both turn their heads, welcome her in, and Rick cups the back of her head and pulls her into a confusion of mouths and tongues, and she tastes herself on both of them.

She sighs and falls again, head on Daryl’s chest, looking dreamily up at Rick as he starts to work on the ropes. She feels like she’s drifting.

"Ohmygod," Daryl whispers, the words coming out in a slurred tangle, and she laughs, presses a kiss to his damp skin.

"You did so good," she murmurs, smiles, leans up and kisses him again. And he lets out something like a laugh, hoarse and deep in his chest.

Happy. This is happy, she thinks. That’s the word for this. It’s weird, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, doesn’t quite add up, but it’s happy, and right now that’s really the only thing she gives a fuck about.

She could drift more, floating in this warm, gentle glow. She can. Rick’s hand on her, stroking her hair, her face, a slow kiss on her cheek. He’ll settle with them in a moment, drift too. No one has anywhere to be.

Safe like this, with them, she has everything.


	3. if she’s your only one then she is also mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [milkshakemicrowave](http://tmblr.co/mZjJpRv6-wLIYbjyAaXv0KQ), prompt: what the brickyl relationship looks like to the rest of the ASZ.
> 
> No smut in this one. Just sweetness.

It’s very unusual. That much is clear, and that much is something on which most people can agree.

But _unusual_ doesn’t mean what it used to. Things about which someone might want some explanation now get arched brows, a little bit of side-eye, some murmuring, but - provided no one else is being hurt - mostly left alone.

No one is being hurt here. Not as far as anyone can tell.

 _It’s weird,_ Glenn hisses once. Not where anyone can hear. Just to Maggie. _Okay? I’m sorry, I know, it’s just… It’s just weird._

And Maggie looks at him, shrugs and kind of smiles. Because not too long ago there was a conversation in their kitchen, visible bruises on Beth’s wrists and throat, and Maggie was worried and finally ready to say something, and Beth didn’t get scared, didn’t look nervous or seem defensive, didn’t deny anything or tell her - in a shaking, overly cheerful little voice - that nothing was wrong, everything was fine. Beth took her sister’s hands in hers and smiled in a way Maggie had never seen before, gently touched Maggie’s face and hair, with such love, and said that it was her life and it was her own business, hers and Daryl’s, and no one else’s. That it wasn’t what it looked like, but what it was… She just couldn’t explain. But it was wonderful.

That she had never been happier in her life.

Unspoken but clear in her eyes: _Something amazing is happening to me._

And that had been hard to miss. How happy Beth seemed. How happy they both seemed. Not obvious, not in everyone’s face. Quiet happiness, like distant singing. Impossible to miss but subtle. How they smiled at each other. How they touched.

How he touched the marks on her, and she seemed so softly overjoyed to let him.

So she hadn’t really known what to say to that. So she hadn’t really said anything. Then, later, asking Rick how it went with Daryl, Rick shrugged.

_Seems fine._

Weird. Unusual. But fine.

Now there’s this.

What Carl thinks is difficult to determine. Carl seems bemused. Carl is more than old enough to get the implications of this, to have at least some vague idea - to the extent that he can bear to think about it at all - of what it means. But mostly he seems content to let it be. He’s a teenager, he still lives at home but he’s starting to have his own life now.

So there’s this.

Summer barbecue, everyone spread out on a series of lawns, air full of the smell of grilling meat: not exactly usual fare, a lot of venison, but venison can be amazing prepared right, and wild boar, and one of the pigs they’ve started keeping, and corn on the cob, beans, rolls and cornbread, and it’s pretty perfect. There’s even beer; precious for now, though some people have started trying to brew their own with mixed results, but it’s an occasion.

And this. Them. Three of them, on a blanket in the grass. Beth lying back, leaning against Daryl’s chest, his arms around her, chin resting on the crown of her head. This much isn’t all that strange, isn’t all that unusual, but then Rick comes over with a beer and Judith in his arms, sinks down next to them, hands the beer to Daryl and settles Judith in his lap. She wriggles a little and he releases her onto the blanket and the little handfuls of grass she’s terribly invested in pulling up; she’s crawling around now and clearly soon she’ll be walking and things will get just a little more interesting.

And this is interesting, Daryl running a hand through Beth’s hair, presses his lips her temple and her jaw, and then Rick lays a finger under her chin, turns her face up to his, kisses her - not lingering but deep, and she lays a hand over his and it’s hard to miss how she smiles against him

So that’s a little unusual.

And when she pulls away and goes after Judith - who’s getting a little further away than she’d like - and Daryl turns and brushes his fingertips over Rick’s cheek, leans in, nods their mouths together slow and sweet and just as deep as Beth…

That’s kind of unusual too.

But no one really feels like judging them, sitting there together as the sun goes down and people talk and laugh and music plays and children run screaming through the twilight, because none of this feels especially permanent but don’t they look like they might last? Don’t they have that same quiet joy about them that people have already gotten used to? Don’t they look as though they might be strong enough, all three, to hold themselves together?

 _Unusual_ doesn’t mean what it used to. _Happiness_ , though.

The meaning of that word never really changes.


	4. your hold-me-down is my design

She's still sure she hates Rick fucking Grimes.

The thing about Rick fucking Grimes is that he's an asshole. He's a sweet man; she's always known that. He's kind. There's a dark side to him, a hard side, a dangerous side, a _lethal_ side, but she's never seen that dark side slip over into cruel. He does what he has to do. He does what he has to do to protect people. The people closest to him. He would do anything for his family. He loves them.

He loves _her._

She knows this. Before, he loved her in a simple, familial way - she cared for his daughter, she cared for everyone. He saw that. Like Daryl, he knew what it meant.

And now, like happened with Daryl, the way in which he loves her is becoming a little more complicated. At least, she thinks so. She doesn't think it's her imagination.

But when it comes to sex, Rick fucking Grimes is an asshole. He teases her. Plays with her. Torments her. With this he _is_ cruel, and he’s crueler than Daryl ever was. And that's the other thing: he's a _bad goddamn influence,_ because since this whole thing started, Daryl has been getting a lot worse. Daryl has been getting a lot _meaner_ , and though he always enjoyed it, he's clearly been taking a great deal more pleasure in working her up, hitting and stroking and petting her, hitting her again just how she likes it, binding her and giving her his fingers and his tongue - never his cock, no, because that would be too _nice_ \- and getting her so close... and then leaving her hanging. He used to do it occasionally; now he does it all the time. He lets her loose and just walks away, and he forbids her from doing anything to give herself what she's so wet and hot and _aching_ for.

Doing that thing he loves to do sometimes, calling her to him in a semi-secluded place and fingering her, making her touch herself, bring herself right to the edge and then sending her away again, every step and every squeeze and every rub of her thighs utter torture.

She begs for it, implores him, falls to her knees and says she'll do anything he wants, anything at all, just _let her come, please, God,_ and he laughs and observes in the most approving, affectionate way possible that she's such a fucking slut and shakes his head and says no.

Sometimes calls Rick over to see. _Look at this. Just fuckin' look at this._ Speculative glance at Rick. _Should I-?_

And Rick grins and shakes his head too, because Rick fucking Grimes is an _asshole._

Daryl looks at her and shrugs with a slightly apologetic expression which he completely doesn't mean. _Whatcha gonna do?_

She never would have thought about Rick like that. She had that little crush on him back at the prison, that little schoolgirl thing, and that was before life chewed her up and spit her out again, and it was before she and Daryl remade each other, and now she can see things a lot differently. She's ready to see them that way.

She can see how much of an asshole Rick fucking Grimes is.

Everyone knows what's going on. They know the basics. No one really says anything, but she can tell. They knew what was going on with Daryl, at least those basics, and their little inner circle knew Rick talked to Daryl about it and confirmed everything appeared to be fine if kind of weird, so now it's both puzzling and not puzzling that he's slipped into it. If he never had much of a problem with it, if it was going on under his very roof and he knew...

They know the basics of what's going on, but they don't know what Beth knows, which is that when it comes to sex Rick fucking Grimes is the _biggest asshole in the entire goddamn world._

And even if they knew?

They still wouldn't really get the full extent of it. Just how bad it gets.

~

Daryl grabs her as soon as she comes in. She doesn't resist, she doesn't get the feeling he's into that this time; Carl is out doing his own workshift and won't be home for at least a couple of hours, so this isn't entirely unexpected, when Daryl seizes her by the neck and jerks her arm behind her back and steers her up the stairs to Rick's bedroom. He's been sent to fetch her, she thinks with warm amusement. _Hot_ amusement, actually, because she's been kept teetering on the edge for three days now and the slightest thing revs her up like NASCAR. She keeps hoping they'll have mercy on her and maybe this is that; she allows herself to hope a little more. When they finally do - when _Rick_ makes the decision, because the truth is that Daryl likes taking control but really the buck stops at Rick because when you come right down to it Daryl is just as much Rick's toy as she is - she knows it's probably going to be a production. It's going to be a show.

Rick is waiting, standing in the middle of the floor, arms crossed. Still wearing his uniform. Beth has to fight back a smile; she likes the uniform and he knows she likes it so if he still has it on now it's at least partially for her.

That's very nice of him.

He meets Daryl's eyes, slight smile, slight tilt of the head. Daryl halts her, still gripping her neck, gripping her wrist, and she feels and hears him take a breath, and she knows then that he wants this to be over as much as she does.

He loves teasing her. He loves making her life hell that way. But from the beginning, when he was first learning her and she was learning him and he was slowly, gently figuring out how to make her feel best, making her come has always been his favorite thing. Knowing that he can give that to her. He has the power to make her that happy.

The only power he _really_ wants.

Denying her for this long has probably been killing him.

She doesn't have a whole lot of sympathy.

Rick nods at the bed and Daryl releases her at the same time as he shoves her toward it, and she sees what's on it and her eyes widen just a bit.

She thought she had run out of ways to be surprised. Shocked. But there are still things outside her experience. Little things she hasn't really connected to what's going on in her life now, what she's found the strength to make her life into. She's so much braver than she was, but it wasn't all that long ago when she would have blushed into lobster hues at all the things that have become regular features of her nights and, not infrequently, her days. She wouldn't have been able to believe she would ever even _agree_ to do these things, much less _want_ them done to her.

She never would have believed she would want _Daryl_ to do them.

And Rick? Oh God, don't even.

So her horizons have expanded. Getting shot in the head has a way of doing that to someone. But there are still places for her horizons to go, and there on the bed, laid out for her like a present, is a slightly curved slick sliver dildo.

She stares at it. Like she doesn't know what it's for. Except she totally does. Of course she does. How could she _not?_

After all, Rick fucking Grimes is an asshole.

She hasn't been allowed to come in three days; she hasn't had either of their cocks in her in a week. She looks back at them, standing there side by side and just watching her, both with practically identical amused expressions on their faces, and she swallows.

Rick tilts his head again, arms still crossed. "I really gotta tell you what to do?"

Oh, this isn't fair. She bites her lips to keep back a whimper.

"You get what you want at the end of this," Daryl says mildly. "I mean, could be." He shrugs, doesn't quite smile. Those smile-hints of his she sees way more than actual smiles. She loves them. They have a way of convincing her.

So she moves toward the bed, starting to undress as she goes. No, Rick doesn't have to tell her. She knows. Dropping her shirt onto the floor, her bra, working her jeans down her hips and thighs, kicking off her boots and wriggling her panties down to her ankles and flicking them away with one foot, she knows.

She reaches the bed and swallows again, picks the thing up.

She's never touched one before. The fact of the matter is that she's never seen one this close up. It's heavy, smooth as it looks. It's bigger than either of them, almost big enough to worry her. She runs her fingers along its length; she doesn't think it's rubber. Something like rubber, maybe. Somehow denser and more solid than she imagines rubber might be.

She turns back to them, naked, holding it in her hands, and she knows what to do but she's still asking a question with her eyes. And she's abruptly aware that she's so wet it's running out of her, slicking the insides of her thighs. Maybe it's almost big enough to worry her, maybe it's not either of them - which is of course what she _really_ wants - but she does want this. God, just anything in her, almost as much as coming; it's been days and days and yeah, sure, maybe she wouldn't have believed this in that other life she lost months ago when a bullet ripped it out of her, but she wants _cock,_ she wants to be _filled._

She's a _slut._

She sits down on the bed, her legs already spreading - they'll want to see it - holding the thing a little awkwardly like she's not entirely sure how to go about this, but Rick holds up a hand and she freezes.

"No. Suck it first."

She blinks. She gets it, she understands, but somehow it strikes her as weird. It can't feel anything, it's not real... But she _does_ get it. When she's sucking one of them off and the other one is in the room, that's always something they like to watch.

When one of them is sucking the other one off, that's something she likes to watch too.

"Slow," Daryl adds, that smile-hint still playing around his mouth.

Rick fucking Grimes is not the only asshole in the room.

She lifts it to her mouth. It has a flared base which makes it easier to grip, and she holds it, still bemused by its weight, and slips her lips around it. It's cool, tasteless, and just as solid as it felt in her hands - no give. It doesn't feel like them. It's lifeless. Sterile.

But they want her to suck it. She's sure they want her to suck it like it's them. So okay - she'll imagine it's them. Their heat, the softness of their skin, the way sometimes she can feel the beat of their blood through it. The way she gently pulls back their foreskin, swirls her tongue around them. The taste of their sweat, their want. The way they fit her. Perfect. Like she was made for them.

She closes her eyes and takes it a little deeper, pulls it back, runs her tongue up the underside. Circles the tip around her lips, kisses it. Slides it back in and takes it deeper still, slow, until it hits the back of her throat and makes her gag. Pulls it out, pushes it in, gags again. They both like that; Daryl likes that especially much, though she's not sure why. Fucking her mouth until her eyes are watering, until ropes of thick spit extend from her lips to the head of his cock.

So that's especially for him. Even though he doesn't deserve it, because he's an asshole.

She's actually losing herself in it a little, in that delightful session of make-believe, when Rick murmurs, "Okay. Go ahead."

She jerks slightly, a bit startled. Opens her eyes. They're both closer, looking down at her, looming over her. Almost close enough to touch. She draws in a shaky breath and when she lowers the dildo and slips her fingers between her legs and over the lips of her cunt, she draws in a sharp breath at how wet she is.

She thinks she can take it. Even if its size is a little intimidating. She can take it, she _will_ take it, because that’s what she does, because she’s a _slut._

She leans back, spreads her legs wider, lays the head against her cunt and presses it slowly in.

There's a flash of discomfort as she stretches around it and she arches her back, bares her teeth, whimpers. But it's gone almost as quickly as it came and then she just _wants_ it, her whole body practically screaming for it, hungry; it feels like her cunt is sucking at it, trying to pull it into her. She has to hold herself up with her other hand, legs spreading even more, not slow now. Thrusting it into her, her mouth dropping open and her eyes fluttering closed. God, it's so good. It's _so good._ It's not them, it's not them fucking her, it's not them making her come, but this is its own kind of good, a _new_ kind of good, and if they want her to fuck herself she'll do that. Oh yes, she most _certainly_ will.

Seconds and she's already panting, rolling her hips against it, rocking to meet the movement of her own hand, and it's how it feels, how hard it is and how it's everything she wants, muscles clenching around it, but it's also the _sound -_ these wet smacking sounds as she pumps it in and out of herself, and the way they're both breathing a little harder and Rick's voice is low and rough when he says, "Faster."

And Daryl: "Don't you dare fuckin' come."

_Oh God._

She can't hold herself up anymore. She flops onto her back and lifts her legs, spreading as much as she can, gripping the thing with both hands now and _ramming_ it in and out of her cunt, rhythmic groans that almost sharpen into little cries. God, she's not sure she can keep from sending herself flying. Not if she has to keep doing this, like _this,_ so hard and perfect and pretty much gushing already, sure she's dripping all over the bedspread, back arched and her mouth wide open-

And a hand on hers. Stilling her. She knows without having to look that it's Rick's.

Because Rick fucking Grimes is an _asshole._

She opens her eyes and sucks in another hard gasp.

She has no idea how long she was fucking herself, but it was long enough for them to strip and now they're standing right over her, cocks in their hands, and she barely has time to process before Daryl grabs her, slides a hand over her hair and seizes it where she has it tied back, uses it to drag her off the bed and shove her to her knees.

It stings, sharp and very suddenly, and she drops the dildo and whines with pain she doesn't at all dislike. Once again she can barely get her head around what’s happening before Daryl is hauling her forward this time, pushing his cock past her lips and deep enough - yes, of _course -_ to make her gag.

She gropes instinctively at his hips, trying to steady herself, and he lets her. He's busy anyway, both hands now hanging onto her by her hair and holding her in place as he fucks her mouth, and over his shallow breathing she hears Rick murmur, "Oh, _fuck,_ yeah."

She smiles around Daryl's cock. She can still impress him. That makes her happy.

So does this. Even if it's not exactly what she wants.

She moans as he pumps his cock in and out of her, moving at a lazy pace - she's already sure he doesn't want to come fast. They'll both want to take their time. She can feel Rick standing close, feel him, smell him; he's like Daryl, a little - musky and dark and somehow essentially _male_ in a way she can’t define _-_ but also unique, instantly identifiable. And his taste, too, abruptly replacing Daryl's as his hand nudges one of them aside and joins Daryl's remaining one, jerks her away from the cock she's already working on and turns her head and thrusts into her mouth.

Daryl hasn't let go of her, and in fact he's stroking her now, breathing _Yeah, Beth, take him,_ and again she smiles - or as best she can. Because another thing she wouldn't have believed before: she likes being made use of like this.

She likes feeling _used._

Rick likes things to be a touch more complicated; he fucks her slow, fast, slow again, pulling back completely and smearing his precome over her lips and cheeks, pushing back into her and rolling deep. Just the way Daryl likes: her eyes are watering, tears spilling over, and she's fumbling at both of them, a little disoriented. Traded back to Daryl, returned to Rick, more sharp tugs on her hair, pinpricks of pain driving into her scalp. Her jaw is already sore and the world is bleeding away into heavy panting, the sound of her almost choking on them, moaning around them, wishing _so fucking much_ that she could reach between her thighs and-

Well, actually she'd also take that thing back in her cunt. If that was an option. It's nice to discover something new.

She almost laughs.

"Fuck you smilin' at?" Rick, and he sounds like he's smiling too, and she manages to look up and how about that, he is. Practically _grinning,_ the asshole. He smacks the flat of his hand lightly against her cheek. "Huh? What the fuck? What the fuck, you little slut?" He drags her off his cock, slaps her again - still light, playful, not hurting at all, and more laughter bubbles up inside her, delighted. She's a _mess._

She already knows she's not as much of a mess as she will be.

"Get the fuck over here," Daryl grunts, and he's in her again, colliding with the back of her throat. She grabs for him, digs her nails into his hips - because _fuck him_ is why - and she hears something else, a muffled groan, and when she looks up again Rick has one hand cupped around the back of Daryl's head, fingers tangled in his dark hair, lips sealed over his. Flash of his tongue, thrusting almost to match the rhythm of Daryl's cock.

And God, she wants to come so fucking _bad._

Abruptly Daryl clutches at her head, another groan against Rick's mouth, something like a whimper, like words. _Fuck, I'm gonna,_ and she knows he's asking permission, because naturally he can't come either, not without Rick's say-so.

The buck stops at Rick, and it’s already well established what Rick is.

Rick nods, grinning against him, dragging his head back and biting at his jaw, and simultaneously her head is jerked away from them and backward, and she knows what's coming seconds before it happens and just has time to close her eyes and open her mouth, ready for it, _hungry_ for it: Daryl's short grating cry and his come spilling hot and thick over her face, running into her mouth, down to her chin, and Rick's right after. She can feel it spattering her chest. She knows it's in her fucking _hair._ Another groan and she's not sure whose it is, but she can tell by how it sounds that they're kissing again.

God, they are both such unbelievable assholes.

Suddenly the hands gripping her hair are gone and she's falling back and to the side, just managing to catch herself. She can barely _see,_ all she can taste is come - coating her with the tears and the spit already there - and this is why they call her a _slut,_ and really, she doesn't mind, because it's deserved. She _earns_ that title. She'd defend it to anyone. Hell, she _works_ for it.

She runs her fingers through the mess on her face and licks them clean, and she smiles again. Small, pleased. With this, with herself. She would have been horrified, before. Absolutely horrified.

In every important respect, she’s come a long way.

Hands on her, lifting her up between them. Laying her on the bed. She goes loose, limp, allows them to do what they want with her, because this is the part where they take care of her. Someone is leaving the room, someone else is stroking her hair - Daryl, she's pretty sure. Sound of Rick coming back and a warm, damp cloth gently wiping her face and chest and hair clean. Very thorough. She sighs and feels lips on her forehead, arms folding her against a broad, warm chest. Another body behind her - holding her between them. A hand on her hip, grounding her. Daryl is still stroking her hair and he smiles against her cheek.

"Y'alright?"

They aren't such total assholes. Maybe. She nods, sighs again, and someone - now she's not sure who it is - murmurs against her ear.

_My girl, my sweet girl, you're so good._

_I love you so much._

She's not completely sure it's Daryl.

She would have been horrified, before. She might have been upset. She _knows_ she would have been upset. But then if that version of her, who’s gone now, who’s dead – if she could see this, what comes after, how they are with her… maybe she would understand.

Maybe not. But Beth likes to think so.

Nothing for a little. She's exhausted; she didn't know how much. It’s all bleeding out of her, in spite of the low, hot ache still lingering between her legs. She dozes and they settle against her, arms still around her. Then after a while stirring, a quiet laugh, and this time she's sure it's Daryl.

"Should I-?"

Rick. Warm and pleased... And God, oh my God, _fuck him,_ because:

"Nope."

She twists, writhes, trying to hit them, kick them, telling them in no uncertain terms that they are _assholes, they are such assholes, GOD, they are SUCH FUCKING ASSHOLES,_ and they're both laughing and holding her down and trying to kiss her into submission.

And they're assholes. Especially Rick fucking Grimes.

But she loves them anyway.


	5. feel your body closing, I can rip it open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot emphasize enough the degree to which this is Mollie/Schwoozie's fault. It is. Much. Rick's behavior, anyway. Mary/openhearts also shares a huge amount of the blame.

She's alone. Then she's not alone.

They do this sometimes. They do it especially after they've used her hard, at least in some ways, because like everything, sometimes it's what works and sometimes it's not. Sometimes this is what she wants: a bed to herself, because the majority of the time she's with one or both of them, because that's just how this odd little arrangement has arranged itself. Lots of bed-hopping. Her with Daryl. Her with the two of them. Daryl with Rick, which is new and which both of them seem _really_ into, and those are the nights Beth gets left alone.

And she likes that. She doesn't need to be constantly pressed up against their sides to know they're with her. She didn't claw her way through all that shit to be overly needy now, even if she does what she does and she is what she is with both of them.

But there's one other matched pair. One other that isn't yet all that common, though it's happened once or twice. Never for long. Never for a whole night. Maybe because there's just a sense that they're still easing into this thing, even though there's been a lot of plunging and tumbling. Maybe because Rick is giving her space. Maybe because, deep down under how he can be such an asshole about this, and deeper under the darkness that touched him - all of them but maybe him in a different way - out there beyond the walls, Rick Grimes is one of the kindest men she's ever known. The world hasn't killed that.

She trusts him to take care of her. She wouldn't have allowed this to happen if she didn't. She trusts him to take care of her, and he does.

In any way he can.

~

So she's alone until she's not.

She's on her side, back away from the door, not really sleeping but dozing light and soft, with an edge of deeper darkness under the surface. Sometimes she still dreams about the crossbow, about running through the woods, about Daryl tracking her and taking her down and fucking her there in the middle of the meadow until she's broken. She's slipping into that, and when the bed dips under someone's weight she doesn't immediately register it as something real. She presses back against it, the weight and solidity and warmth, murmuring something. Shifting a little. Her eyes flick open, see faint electric light from outside throwing the room into shadows, flutter closed again.

Hand sliding up her bare arm, lips moving against the soft skin just beneath her ear. Tickling, making her shiver in her half-sleep. "Beth."

She mutters something. That voice, smooth, not much like Daryl's rougher murmur. She knows it and something about it slips down between her thighs like a seeking hand.

Earlier they still didn't let her come and she's so resentful about that, but it's kept her clit thrumming low and hot and she would be telling a huge fucking lie if she said she doesn't intensely feel the love part in that particular love-hate relationship. Hypersensitivity grips her and shakes her every minute, and everything, every bit of sensory input - the scent of both of them, the sounds of their voices and their breathing, their hands on any part of her for any reason, even just walking with her thighs rubbing gently together - it's like she's constantly touching herself. Constantly keeping herself at a simmer. Waiting to boil.

This voice. The heat of breath on the side of her throat. She shivers a little, presses back again and feels a big, solid body stretched behind hers, feels an arm curling around her waist.

Feels hard thickness at her back, and when Rick shifts against her and air hits that patch of skin she feels a smear of cooling precome.

Already. Already that hard for her. Because she knows it's for her. And it's just him. Just him here.

No Daryl to keep him in check.

"You awake?" He rolls his hips and she feels him smile against the nape of her neck. "You are, aren't you?"

She whimpers. God, she's soaking herself, can feel it sticky between her legs, because she's on such a fucking hair trigger, but she's sure this is just more torture, that he'll play with her and teeter her on the edge for a while because it amuses him to do so and then he'll leave her burning and begging for it and go back to Daryl with a grin on his smug asshole face.

Or she'll come and he'll make her sorry for it.

If those are her only two options she's not sure which she wants more.

His hand is moving, sliding over her hip, nudging the sheet back and revealing her thighs. He stays down there for a little, scratching her gently with his blunt nails, then trails his fingertips back up and cups her breast, stroking at her nipple with his thumb, so light and so teasing and fuck, she really could just come. From this alone, maybe. She really thinks she might be able to.

"That was mean before, wasn't it?" He actually sounds almost _apologetic_ , the asshole. Like it wasn't ninety percent him. "Not lettin' you come. You've been such a good girl, we really shoulda let you." Another smile, his fingers pinch her, and she bites back a breathy little cry and rolls her ass back against his cock and wonders how long he's going to make her beg before he leaves her unsatisfied anyway. "You wanna come now?"

She wants not to give in, is what she wants. She wants to fight back, grit her teeth, not give him anything. She'll cave for Daryl, fall to pieces for Daryl; Daryl tells her to crawl on her hands and knees to receive his cock and she will. She'll do it without any hesitation whatsoever. Daryl _rules_ her, because he's earned the right, because she wants him to.

Rick is still sort of an open question. Rick is a loose variable.

But Jesus _Christ,_ he asks her that and she wants to not give in but she wants to give in so goddamn bad.

So he pinches her again and heat rockets into her clit, her cunt - still burning with how she treated herself with the dildo - and she squeezes her thighs together and bites at her lip, trying not to whine.

"Yeah."

"Tell me what you want. Say it."

"I wanna... I wanna come." It's still a little hard, sometimes, to say these things, to make herself say them without blushing fiercely, without her throat locking up. She didn't leave all of herself on that hallway floor, in that pool of blood. But it floods out of her now like the juices flowing from her cunt, and she can say it. Because she does. She _needs_ it, she's losing her mind. "Rick, I wanna come, please let me come, please, please-"

"I shouldn't. Daryl ain't here."

"Oh my _God,_ Rick, _please._ " Whimpering, squirming against him, arching her back to shove her breast into his palm. If he even just gives her more of _that._ "I've been waitin', I've been..."

"You've been a good girl? Like I said?"

"Yeah."

"You've been a good little slut?"

She gasps, thin and sharp - she's still working her way through what it means to be called that, what it does to her, how it carves through pieces of her and makes her feel like she's _not_ a good girl, not at _all,_ but she made it clear and they keep using the word, gently, even affectionately, as if they're trying to help her get used to it. As though they can sense that she wants these things.

"Yeah."

"Say that. Tell me."

"I've been." She chokes on the word and it almost hurts, but she makes herself keep going. "I've been a good little slut."

"Yeah, you have. So good, Beth." He's found a rhythm now, moving slowly, grinding his cock against her ass. "Such a good girl. Could just give you what you want." His hand slips away from her breast, gives her nipple one last twist as it goes, grazes down over her belly to...

To...

She practically thrusts her hips up as he approaches, panting something that might be his name, and she was wrong, it's all Rick, it all is, at least right now, and she'd do anything he wanted if he would just give her release. _Any_ kind of release.

"Lemme see how wet you are."

Oh, God. Oh, God, his hand, his _hand_. She hisses through her bared teeth, fumbling for his wrist before she remembers herself and drags her hand back, clenches it in the pillow instead. If she goes after him, tries to make him do more than he wants to before he wants to do it... But his fingers nudging her legs apart and sliding through the mess around her cunt, and she can hear the wet sound as he runs a single fingertip from just below her clit across the lips of her cunt and back to her ass. She _twists_ herself, a full-body spasm, and she can't help it: just the lightest of touches and it's already too much. Suddenly she's gasping, pleading, _RickRickRick please oh my God I'm gonna I'm gonna I can't_ and she comes like the crack of a whip, stiffening and breaking open and basically pouring herself all over his hand, and he holds onto her and just keeps _stroking_ her, circling his fingers slowly around her clit, and he's still going when she starts to loosen and whispers _I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean to._

"It's alright," he whispers back, and she shudders again - relief, now, because she won't be punished. She's pretty sure.

Even if some punishment might be nice. She hasn't had that for a while, either.

"I'm sorry," she manages again, and Rick kisses her temple, still working her - so slowly.

"It's alright. Sweet girl. You can." She feels him grinning against her then, hears it in his voice. "You can come as many times as you want."

And his fingers go back to work in earnest, pressing down harder, flicking across her clit, and it literally takes another ten seconds before she's coming again, just as hard and somehow even deeper, and when a louder groan pushes itself up through her throat Rick closes his other hand over her mouth and rubs at her until she's sore, until she can't, and she twitches and sobs a little and he withdraws his fingers.

From her clit, anyway. They're still down there, and as she lies there limp against him and waits for the vertigo to pass, she feels his finger nosing the lips of her cunt apart and then into her, achingly slow, though she feels every part of her grabbing for him, wanting to suck him inside her body.

He knows. He laughs again. "Squeeze me, honey. Can you do that?"

She can. She lets out a shuddering breath and tightens her muscles, and he makes a quiet, pleased sound.

"Again."

She's tired but she does, and even if it's a little harder, he still sounds pleased. He pushes his finger deeper, withdraws, pushes in again. She rocks her hips, half mindless, and he moves into a gradual rhythm, fucking in and out of her.

"You want more?"

"Yeah." No hesitation. She does. Two orgasms aren't nearly enough to make up for what she's been through, what _they've put her through._ Not coming for days, sure, but also denying her their cocks, at least in her cunt, and no dildo is going to replace either of those. How they feel, so hot and heavy and alive. What they mean.

That they want her. Want to be inside her. Want to love her that way.

"Tell me what you want. C'mon. How can I give you anything unless you tell me?"

"Want your cock." Limp little whimper. Pathetic. She revels in the slight shame of it.

"Louder."

"Rick, I want your cock in me, I want it... Please give it to me." Easier as she goes. Wanting it like she does, like a torrent, aching heat beating against the walls of her cunt as he fucks her with his finger, sure she's dripping all over the nice white cotton sheets. Which wouldn't be new. "Your cock, your cock, Rick, oh my _God,_ gimme... your big cock, ah..."

He moves behind her with one hand, doing something, and she gasps hard when she feels it pressing between her thighs. "You like it?"

 _Yes,_ Jesus, _why is he such an asshole._ "I like it."

When he speaks again he sounds meditative. "Not sure that's enough."

Get ahead of the curve. Anticipate. _Throw yourself in, it's the only way you're going to get anything._ "I love it. I love your cock so much." She sucks in a huge, shuddering breath. "I love how it tastes, in my mouth, God, I love it when- My-"

"Your cunt, Beth? Your sweet little pussy, you like it there?"

She's not even sort of coherent anymore. It's more than wriggling against him, trying to stroke him with her thighs; she's _writhing_ , jerking her hips forward against his hand, and a sharp, high-pitched sound escapes her and she doesn't try to hold it back.

"Givin' you so much more than I should. Daryl's gonna be pissed, he wanted to be here when we finally let you go."

She doesn't care. Fuck Daryl. In more ways than one.

"He wanted to eat you out, Beth. He wanted to get down there and suck you off, suck that clit, make you come all over his face. He wanted that so bad. Drink you. He's still gonna get that, but y'know? Not gonna be the same." Rick bites her ear, closes his teeth down hard, and she lets out a strangled little yelp. "Kinda fair, though. I think. How long did he have you without sharin'?"

_Oh God, does it even matter, you complete and total asshole._

"Got some time to make up for, far as I'm concerned." His hand moves against her and she feels the slight stretch when he works a second finger into her, thick and rough and almost hurting. But so good. Even if it hurt a little it would be so good, and God knows _hurt_ doesn't mean the same thing to her that it does to almost everyone else.

_Hurt me. Please, Jesus, hurt me. I want you to hurt me so good._

"Maybe make you come again before I fuck you." Meditative once more, calm and a little distant. Considering his options. Like she doesn't feel his cock scorchingly hot between her thighs, sliding as he rolls himself back and forth. And that calm voice, well, it's just a bit tense, and she feels a cool wave of satisfaction. "You like that?"

She nods. Knows what he wants, but now that she has a better handle on things, on herself, she feels like playing this game with slightly more in the way of assertiveness.

"Beth." Almost disappointed. "You gotta _tell me,_ c'mon."

"I..." Feels so good to play hesitant, even when she still is, just a little. She's not a fool, not with either of them. They both love when she does this, when she plays a bit innocent, a bit young and inexperienced, a bit horrified by what she's being told and made to do. Maybe it's sort of twisted, but _all_ of this is sort of twisted, and wonderfully so, and she'll play this game.

Play it and love it.

"You _what?_ "

"I wanna come again." She gropes for his hand, knowing she shouldn't, wanting to anyway. Her eyes are open, fixed on the soft light drifting in through the curtains. "Your fingers, Rick... In me..."

"You want me to fuck you with 'em? Fuck that tight cunt?"

"Oh my _God."_ So close to just laughing, edged with frustration. She really believes he might give her this too, but of course she never should have expected to be given it without additional torture. Not the flat of his hand, not the belt, not the cane they made from an actual cane pulled out of a garage. Not clothespins or the sharp scratch of a serrated blade. This is somehow worse.

"Maybe make you a little looser first?" Now he really is asking a question, and it startles her - not much, but she's been losing herself in this, and it pulls her back out, at least part of the way. Telling her, but also asking her. "Think you can take another finger?"

_Is this okay?_

Stretching her that much. Daryl has had three fingers in her before, and it's never been exactly _painful_ the way he's done it, but this feels different somehow, and maybe not just because it's Rick. Not that she doesn't trust him. She does. So much. But it's just...

It's _different._

She cranes her head and sees that he's looking down at her, eyes thrown into shadow, just the faintest glint of light off the center of one. Waiting. He won't move until she tells him to.

She trusts him. Slowly, she nods.

"Sweet girl." He kisses her temple again, her cheekbone. and then all at once he withdraws his fingers entirely, and before she has time to protest the loss he slides a hand under her and flips her onto her back, shifting away from her and down on his knees between her legs.

She pushes dazedly up on her elbows, trying to focus on him in the dimness, and he looks so big looming over her like that, hands on her thighs, cock jutting up and glistening with so much precome, so wet for her too, and her mouth waters.

They've trained her so well by now. The thought makes her shudder, all heat.

"Relax, honey," he breathes, lays a hand on her lower belly, and with the other he spreads her wider. Takes her by the hips and pulls her a little way onto his knees so her cunt is angled slightly upward. "You need me to stop, you tell me. Alright? You tell me right away."

Speechless, chest heaving, she nods. He gives her his own smile - curled, hot.

"Good girl."

Two fingers back in her, gradual, pulling back out to slick them with her wet and pushing in again. Beth drops her head back and sighs deep and heavy, and when Rick curls his fingers up she moans, helpless, moans again as he slowly begins to fuck her.

Her moans fall into his rhythm. She doesn't even know how long. He's holding her hip with his other hand, steadying her, and bizarrely it's comforting - not that she needs it. But she's spread so wide, she knows she's going to be stretched wider and she's beginning to fully grasp what that means, and this man is still new to her in so many new ways. Still in some ways an unknown quantity.

But she feels safe like this. She feels absolutely safe. He's going to make her feel good.

That's all he wants.

"Ready, girl? You ready for it?" She nods, her eyelids drooping and fluttering now and then, but when he hesitates and she opens her eyes, he jerks his chin toward the beside table. The drawer there.

"Get me the lube."

Slightly nonplussed, she stretches out an arm and clumsily opens it, fumbles in it for the little tube, leans up and hands it to him.

Wonderful the things people _don't_ loot. _Don't_ scavenge _._

He takes it without a word and uncaps it, spreads a healthy amount of it over his fingers, drops it and leans in again, and before he does anything he lowers himself, still holding her hip, and catches her lips with his. So light, but his tongue traces the seam of her mouth and she opens it, invites him in, and he strokes her tongue with his, weirdly affectionate in a way that doesn't even necessarily have all that much to do with sex.

Just being close to her. Being close to her like this.

"My sweet baby girl," he whispers, and sits back, keeps his eyes locked onto her face, presses a third finger into her.

Beth arches her back, hissing - not pain, not exactly, but the _stretch,_ how suddenly she feels bigger inside, how she also feels herself clamping down, tightening without meaning to. _Relax, relax,_ if she can relax it'll be good, she knows this, has done it before. But her back is still pulled into a bow, her breasts standing out on her chest, and it's that that returns her to where she needs to be. She reaches up with both hands and cups herself, drifts her fingertips across her hard little nipples, and the pleasure is so pulsing and so hot that she shudders and feels herself loosen and open up.

Subside.

"Beth, do that," Rick is whispering. "Yeah, play with them. Play with yourself. Do it for me."

For him. She smiles and gives herself a light pinch, has to fight off a laugh. His hand is moving again and she still feels so goddamn _tight_ , but any remaining discomfort is gone. It's all warmth, all delight, and when he asks if she can take a fourth finger she only strokes herself and smiles wider and nods.

And she almost cries out when he does it.

It doesn't hurt. She has no idea how to describe what it is, being stretched out like that. She's made for it, she knows, made to be able to do that, and maybe that's why it's possible and she's not being torn apart by his big hand, his thick fingers, but it doesn't explain why it feels like _this._ Her breath comes out in loose heaves, clumsy efforts at words.

_Rick, ah, it feels so good, yes yes yes, oh my God, oh it feels amazin', oh my God don't stop, oh. Oh._

His words, flooding over her, so smooth. Telling her. He wants her to know. "Christ, Beth, you're so tight. You feel that?" He spreads his fingers apart, hardly at all, and her hand flies up to slap against her own mouth as a cry bursts out of her. It's _so_ good. "Feel your little pussy, you're takin' so much, you're such a good girl. Look at you. Look what a pretty little slut you are. Can't get enough of it."

He's breathless, almost as much as she is. Lost in her. She wonders - to the extent that she can - how aware _he_ is of what he's saying. She smiles and rolls her head and clutches at herself and wishes she could just scream and scream.

When she comes. When she comes with his fucking hand inside her, so soon now. Because she feels it, his thumb, folded against his other fingers but that last _stretch,_ she's so wide open, he's so big, he's _huge_ and she's taking him, all of him, oh my God, _Rick_ , yes, oh _yes._

"You're gonna come, Beth." His voice is like sun-warmed honey flowing over her, so rich and sweet. "You're gonna come for me. Alright? Come like this. You can. I'm tellin' you. Get those fingers on your clit. Do it now."

He's moving his hand, so slow and so slight and so, so careful, but it feels like she's being fucked as hard as she ever has been, and when she presses her fingers to her clit she has to muffle another cry. It's so much - she _is_ her cunt, all of her, all concentrated in that, every part of her this thing incapable of feeling anything but pleasure. He hasn't bound or beaten her, hasn't given her knives, his hand on her throat, hasn't fucked her mouth until she's dizzy and crying from gagging, but with this he's gotten her to that place inside her that she's always chasing, where everything is warm and soft and safe, where she's floating, flying.

She works her clit, soaked with her juices, _drenched_ in herself and in how bad she wants this, and he's still talking to her, telling her what a good little slut she is, look at her, look at how beautiful, how sweet, taking everything he's giving her, she's going to feel so amazing when she comes because she earned it, earned every second, she's going to just absolutely fucking lose her _mind-_

She _wrenches_ herself upward, convulsing, locked into wave after wave after wave, _wailing_ into the hand jammed against her mouth and biting furiously at her own fingers. She gushed all over Daryl's hand before, has done it once or twice since then, and she's doing it now, feels herself letting go that way. She's a flood and she's wild and uncontainable, and dimly she hears him gasping _Yeah, Beth, that's it, holy shit, that's it, you come, girl, you fuckin'_ come, _oh, you beautiful fuckin' girl, I love you._

_I love you so much._

She floats.

At some point she feels - as if from miles away and far below her - Rick withdrawing his hand. There's still no pain at all but she's aware of a low and pleasant burn like a well-used muscle, the stretch easing. She moves, not for any real reason or in any real direction, and Rick's hands smooth up her belly and sides, one of them slick and sticky, and she doesn't care. Everything feels good. She's completely fucked out and she didn't even get his cock and she doesn't care about that either.

Now he's lifting away from her. Shifting. Upward, up toward her head, and there's a hand on her jaw, turning her face and stroking into her hair, and when she finally manages to get her eyes partway open she sees him there, that looming dark shape, smells him and the musky arousal of his cock so close to her, and he doesn't have to tell her what he wants.

Her mouth drops open and once again she smiles. Loose. Half conscious.

"You're gonna take my come," he breathes, and she can hear the soft, slippery noise as he strokes himself with a slick hand. "Alright? You're gonna take all of it. Like a good girl."

Yes. Yes, she is. So she just lies there, limp and buzzing and happy, as he combs his hand through her hair and tugs her head gently up, his breath and his groans tightening and tightening and finally coiled up and releasing hard as he shudders, hisses her name and spills so hot all over her chin, her cheek, into her waiting mouth.

And he lets her go and leans over her on his knees, and it's dim and he's thrown her into shadow but she knows he can see her well enough as she cleans her face off with her fingers, licks up every drop.

Because she's a good girl.

"Beth," he whispers, and he lowers himself down along her side, gathering her up, pulling her against his chest and tucking her head under his chin and stroking a hand over her back, slow, so slow, so gentle.

They're both such a mess. She wants to laugh. She doesn't have the energy.

He said something. He did.

_I love you so much._

She turns it over in her mind and wonders at it.

Thing is, it's not really such a surprise, to hear that.

"My sweet girl," he murmurs, smiles against her brow. "Sweet baby girl, you're so amazing."

Noise from the doorway, cleared throat. Very casual. Ordinarily she might jerk her head up, she might be surprised at _that,_ but it's also not very surprising, and she does find the energy to laugh, shoot an awkward glance back over her shoulder. Rick is still smiling, still stroking her like nothing at all happened.

Daryl standing in the doorway and leaning, arms crossed. A shaft of light catches his face - his eyes are slightly narrowed, smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

An interesting question: just exactly how long has he been there?

"This is somethin'," he says softly, and he almost sounds as if he's speaking half to himself.

Beth nods, her eyes slipping closed again. Yes.

Yes, it is.


	6. I'm drowning in your dizzy noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is actually the beginning of a longer plotline (IF ONE CAN CALL IT THAT)/kink that I plan to explore. Adding it to the tags, but really it only comes in at the end, at least in any significant way. There will be more of it.
> 
> Also HOW DID RICK AND DARYL INITIALLY DECIDE ON STARTING THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE: yes, I have finally determined to answer that in an upcoming chapter. Which is cool, because actually _I_ haven't been clear on that myself.

Starts small. Kind of out of nowhere.

Except not. Probably no one paying attention would or should be surprised. It's been like this from the beginning, really even when there wasn't much in the way of affection here. Much in the way of loyalty.

Much in the way of adoration.

Like that even then, at least - again - the beginning of it. Daryl's there, all bristling and growling and circling with lips pulled back and teeth bared, and Rick watches, waits, lunges and snaps at Daryl's throat and puts him on the ground. Puts him on his back, belly exposed - _chokehold's illegal_ \- and sure, he's still growling on the surface, surly and resentful and resisting whenever he can, but he's also still on his back and he's still showing Rick his throat, and before long there isn't even any pretense in it. He'll keep his head down. Whine when he's left alone. Follow Rick everywhere, tail wagging hopefully. Curl up as close as he's allowed, nuzzle, look for approval. Roll over and sit and beg. Slipped for a while after Grady, seemed like maybe not even Rick could bring him back, but then when everything changed and he _did_ come back after all...

Yeah, he's had the upper hand for a while. Making _Beth_ crawl and beg and do tricks. He loves that, loves it more than he ever believed he would. Taking those parts of himself, bringing them out, gentling them even as he hones them. Uses them to make her happy in ways she's never been. Never imagined. Both of them. Him taking her further, her taking him. Taking each other's hands and walking into this country.

But now there's Rick.

So certain things have begun to move in new directions.

Or begun to find their ways back into much older ones.

~

Started in earnest that first night, when they shared her. When Rick forced him down, dragged him in, filled his mouth with cock, and Daryl hadn't done that before and they hadn't discussed the specifics of that, but it was Rick, Rick, and what he felt under the vague surprise and the even vaguer - and completely welcome - shame was such an intense desire to please this man and such intense pleasure at the thought that he might.

Later, a bit later, spreading himself wide and letting Rick take him, inside him in the most complete way possible, and he was there literally on his back, everything exposed, nothing hidden at all, and it was so much and more than he thought he could but he did, did, and it was so wonderful.

Understanding, a little, of what Beth felt. Feels. Letting go that way. She ground her cunt against his mouth and all he wanted to do was drink her down, make her feel so fucking good, because it was what she wanted, but it was also what _Rick_ wanted, and the buck stops with Rick.

_Roll over._

He gets a sense - dim, very dim - of how things might go. What might be possible. Rick crawls up his body and kisses him deep and hard and slow, and Daryl watches Beth stroke her clit, watches her watching them, and he thinks more than one thing might change here.

She's given him so much. She's taken so much of what he wanted to give her.

Might be time to move things in a new direction.

~

Late, very late: Rick waylays him just inside his and Beth's bedroom, seizes the back of his neck, and he has time to catch a glimpse of Beth seated on the edge of the bed, naked with her legs spread so wide and a coy little smile on her face - _who, me? I'm a good girl, I wouldn't do anything of the kind_ \- and two fingers deep in her cunt, sliding in and out with a wet smacking noise.

Well.

Rick practically throws him into the room, and before Daryl has time to steady himself and whirl around and demand to know what the fuck is going on Rick has him by the neck again and then by the _hair_ , yanking his head back and shoving him so hard his scalp screams bright pain and he lets out a little yelp.

This hasn't exactly happened before. Not exactly like this.

"Down," Rick murmurs, and Daryl drops to his knees without another word. His gaze is still fixed on Beth, on her glistening fingers as they slide in and out of her cunt, and his mouth waters. What he suddenly hopes he's going to be made to do more than anything else in the world. Not even made to do; _allowed_ to do. That's what this comes down to. He already knows.

Rick bends slightly, still gripping Daryl's hair. "You want something?"

Daryl nods. Suddenly talking seems difficult. More even than usual. But of course Rick isn't going to just let that go, because Rick is an asshole, and Rick rarely - if ever - shuts up.

"What do you want?"

Daryl whimpers and Rick yanks at his hair, jerks his head back again, and Daryl bites down hard on his bottom lip to keep from yelling. Every little spark of pain is burning its way down to his cock, filling it and making it strain, so hard it's almost a new kind of pain entirely.

"Wanna eat her out." He stares at her and Beth stares back, still smiling, her fingers drifting up to her swollen clit and flicking lightly at it, grazing over it, making her eyes half close and her chest hitch into a gasp. "Lemme taste her."

"Taste her where?"

Daryl clenches his teeth, all of him tight frustration - it's not fair, it's not, he does everything this man asks, everything he demands; he's _loyal_. Always has been. He should get what he wants.

Except there's Beth. There's Beth and what they've done to her, what they've put her through. And she's looking at him now like he doesn't rule her. Like she doesn't give a fuck. Like she'd be happy to drag him down and use him. Narrowing her eyes as her tongue circles her lips, as she presses one of her fingers past her lips and opens her mouth, wraps her tongue around it and licks it clean of her juices.

Ugh, fuck it, it's not _fair_. Even if it is, it's still not.

"Wanna taste her cunt," he whispers. "Wanna... lick it all up. Everything."

God, it's hard, but he's trying.

"What about you, Beth?" Daryl can't see Rick's face, but he can hear the grin, that fucking grin, cat got a whole fucking _pile_ of canaries, every canary around, and he shivers and feels hot resentment pulsing through him and really all he feels in the end is like this thing made for one purpose and one purpose only, and it's to do what they say.

Isn't _this_ a development.

"What about me?" Her voice is tight, breathless, her fingers moving faster; she's getting herself close, but Daryl knows without having to be told that she's not allowed to come just yet. That's how Daryl works, and it's how _Rick_ works. Rick works by denial, and he's even meaner. Here Daryl is on his knees and he wants everything he's not getting.

"You want that? Want his mouth on your pretty little pussy? Want his tongue in your cunt?"

 _Oh, God._ Daryl strains a groan between his teeth. Rick talking like that with Beth... Usually does things to him. Hard, hot things, deliciously bad things. But somehow this is different.

"Yeah, I want it." Her head is loose, lolling back, and she's clearly fighting to keep it up and keep her eyes open and generally stay engaged. She could lose herself in herself. Happens all the time. He never would have believed, before all this, that she would be so goddamn into practically _attacking_ her own cunt. "Rick, please... Let him have it. He wants it, _I_ want it, I want it so bad, let him..."

Once again he feels Rick bending, crouching this time, feels a puff of hot breath against the side of his throat, a smile against the edge of his ear. "Can't say no to her. Not when she sounds like that. Go." Cuff on the back of his head and he's suddenly released, and almost falls forward with a harsh whimper. "Crawl. Don't touch her when you get to her. Just your mouth. And don't you _dare_ fuckin' touch yourself."

He does. Hands and knees to her, gazing up at her, and when he reaches her she sits forward enough that she can comb both hands into his hair and pull him into her.

He closes his eyes and moans deep, aching and heavy and all relief as he tongues her, swirls his way between her wet lips, licks up to her clit and strokes her just with the tip, makes her shiver and sigh and drag him in deeper. She's so sweet and thick and sticky all over his face, drenching him, and he uses his tongue to lap her juice into his mouth like a dog. She rocks her hips, sighs deeper, those breathless little groans she always makes when she's rolling fast and hard toward the edge, but he hears Rick's voice low and just a bit rough, so close.

"Remember the rules, girl."

"Oh, God." Helpless and high, tightening almost into a squeak. "Oh, _God_ , Rick, I... Oh my God, lemme come, please, please, I-"

"He's good? Bein' good to you?"

"He's so- He's so good. He's so good, lemme, _ah_ , Rick..."

Daryl genuinely wonders if he can come without a hand laid on his cock. It might be fun to find out.

"You gonna come all over his face? In his mouth, you gonna get him all nice and wet?" Daryl somehow wrenches his eyes open, looks up, and Rick is kneeling on the bed behind her, stroking her hair and her shoulders, and grinning down at him with that sharp, nasty grin. _Oh, you fucking asshole._ "'cause I wanna use him after."

_Use him._

Everything in Daryl goes white-hot, clenches up, coils like a spring almost to the breaking point, and he holds Rick's gaze like it's a hand on him, stroking him by sight alone. _Jesus God, what even is this man._

"I'm gonna-" Her hands tightening in his hair, pulling almost as hard as Rick did though at least they aren't yanking, and fuck, his scalp is going to be burning and stinging well into tomorrow. "Rick, I'm gonna come, I can't-"

"C'mon, baby girl." Rick slides two fingers past her lips and she sucks at them, mindless. "You can come. Go ahead and come now."

She does. She snaps herself up and backward and bites back a cry, and now she _is_ yanking on his hair, and it hurts and it's fucking amazing and he's aware that he's rolling his hips even though there's no hand, no friction, looking for the pressure of his own goddamn pants, humping the air. She's flooding his mouth, dripping to his chin, and he wants to touch her and himself so bad he's about ready to rip off his own hands.

Rick keeps stroking her, running his hands through her hair, kissing the edge of her temple, whispering things, but all the time he's locked on Daryl, that grin dark and hot in his eyes.

_I wanna use him after._

Fucking hell.

At some point she loosens, starts to let him go, starts to go limp against Rick's chest. "Alright, girl," he breathes, hands running over her upper arms. "Alright, you're alright."

She nods, panting. He slowly lays her down.

Climbs off the bed.

Daryl's face is still covered in her, his cheeks, his chin; he's trying to lick her off his lips, clean around his mouth, but he can't touch himself, and he's guessing that means at _all_. And he's so fucking hard, and if he's good, if he's _good_...

Rick once again has him by - what the fuck else - the hair, and drags him in and tilts his head back, undoing his own belt and his fly and roughly pulling his cock free, already jerking himself.

"You know what you're gonna do," he says - gasps a little. Good, serves him right. He shouldn't fully have the upper hand here. "You want my come?"

Daryl nods, best he can. Speaking was hard before; for some reason it's almost impossible now. It's just not in his brain at all, words and the ability to form them. He's not meant for words. They aren't his thing. This, this... This is it, all of it, and he can lose himself in it and not think, not worry - just do what he's told. Just be obedient.

"Open wide," Rick hisses, and lets go in hot, sticky ropes all over Daryl's face, dripping the last spill of it onto his tongue.

Abruptly he's released. Dazed. Disoriented. This has happened before: the first time Rick made him suck his cock, the first time Rick fucked him. But this is different. He didn't feel so weak, those times. He didn't feel so completely pushed down and held there.

It doesn't feel new, somehow. Feels like something he's been waiting for.

He rocks back on his knees, lifting a hand to his chin, catching a drop of come there and sucking it into his mouth. It's habit. He doesn't think about doing it. But Rick lets out a pleased noise and when a hand slides through his hair it doesn't tug, doesn't yank.

Rick is just stroking him. Petting him.

"Good boy," Rick murmurs. "That's a good boy."

It's like a spike of pure heat - not into his cock but straight into his _spine_ , into the core of him. He whimpers softly - a totally animal sound - and lifts his head, pressing into Rick's palm. And Rick keeps petting him, and from the bed he hears Beth laughing very softly. Almost a giggle.

When he beats her down, when he breaks her, something sweeps over him that's so simple and pure he has no idea how to describe or explain it. It's like being somewhere clean and bright, where he knows what to do, where it's easy, where all the control is his and everything is in its place. Where what he's doing is everything required of him.

It's a little like that now. Just a little.

"Such a good boy," Rick whispers again, and there's another one of those spikes but it's gentler, and Daryl sighs. He's still hard, so fucking hard, but somehow that matters less than it did. "Isn't he good, Beth?"

"Yeah." She sounds almost as loose as he feels, just a touch giddy. Near laughing again. "Yeah, he is."

So.

This is interesting.


	7. a blueprint of the pleasure in me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Bethyl Smut Week, hooray. So no Rick in this chapter, though I do think he's _present_ in a sense. 
> 
> Title from Bjork's "Pagan Poetry".

He should have known, when they began this, that sooner or later she would turn the tables. Just seize them, all of them, every fucking one, and toss them into the air, end over end. And when they came down, well... They might end up in some very interesting places and in some very interesting positions.

Except he did know. He knew it perfectly well. There are times - more and more - when he wonders if maybe this was a kind of endgame, if this was something a part of him has been maneuvering into place for a long time. A long con on himself. Very clever. Like maybe he couldn't give way under her without a little extra pushing, even if he wanted to - God, wanted to so bad.

There could be reasons for that. A number of them, all plausible. Maybe he was scared. It's hard enough to be strong for her, over her, or it was. It was frightening enough to realize what he could do to her, what he could make her do, how much of himself he might be revealing and how much of himself he might have to face. What he might have to learn.

It hasn't been so hard since they took on an extra pair of hands. Rick takes control like he was born to it, which perhaps in a sense he was. Rick takes charge, takes them both in hand. Rick has a way of smoothing over all the edges. He has a way of removing not only any resistance but any desire to resist. He has a way of making it so, so sweet to give in. Always has.

And it turns out Rick isn't the only one. Because those same qualities make him a good instructor. He teaches. He trains.

There's love here, a lot of it, and they're uncovering more all the time, richer and deeper, and love like that brings care with it. So much. But there are other sides to this, and Rick is...

Rick is Rick. Rick looked at Daryl and saw something he could use. And Rick looked at Beth and - apparently - saw something he could mold.

Beth has done some teaching of her own. Since she came back. Long before then. Taking Daryl by the hand, leading him through certain doors and into the way of certain truths.

He's not a monster.

But he _is_ a beast.

~

Maybe Rick planted the seed. But at the beginning, in the end, it's her - all her, all by herself, just the two of them alone - and that feels right.

That feels good.

They began this alone. There's always going to be something between them that no one else shares, no matter how close they get. That something has taken on a charge and now it's crackling and sparking, a tether between them, reaching from her to him and curling around him. Curling into him, twining itself around his spine.

He stands there, bedroom door closed behind him, and he stares at her in the low, warm light of the bedside lamps. He knew, when she told him to do this and to be here, that something like this was going to be happening.

He didn't know she was going to be wearing _this_.

She doesn't dress up. It's just not something he's had her do - not yet. Not something _Rick_ has had her do - again, not yet. Clothes just aren't a factor. They're not important. Daryl is almost exclusively focused on what happens when the clothes come _off_ , and given his affection for cutting them off her when knives are going to be involved, it's always seemed better to have her dressed in stuff for which she feels no particular affection and which is easily replaceable. He just... He hasn't thought about it. As far as he was aware, Rick hasn't either.

Except he looks at her now and he knows without having to be told that this part at least was mostly Rick's idea. That Rick might even have made the selection in question. Laid it out for her. Told her to put it on. Watched.

Heat, a sharp, thick swell of it high in his chest and plunging like a meteor down  into his cock. He was hard the second he stepped in here and saw her; _hard_ is now not entirely an adequate word.

She's wearing a corset. A _corset_.

He gapes and she looks back at him, seated on the end of the bed, her skin creamy against the white bedspread, her head cocked and her hair tugged into an unusually neat ponytail, and he thinks he can actually detect a hint of makeup - subtle, understated, still so quintessentially _her_ , but her huge eyes look darker and her curving lips look pinker, and fuck, it might just be his imagination and anyway he keeps returning to the fact that she's _wearing a fucking corset._

It's _also_ very her, is the thing. Before now he would have had a difficult time even _picturing_ her in one, wouldn't have ever occurred to him that she might, but this... Somehow this fits her. It's pretty, delicate - brocade of gold with small blue flowers, green leaves and vines in graceful swoops and spirals. It looks like it might have been very expensive, when anything like this cost anything at all. It fits her perfectly, presses her waist gently into a deeper inward curve and makes her hips swell. As long as he's had any opinion at all, his opinion has been that her body is perfect, _flawless_ , and he wouldn't have changed anything - and this isn't a change either. Not really. But that deeper curve... and above it, pressed up and supported by the corset's top, her breasts, their own wonderful swells, her little coral-pink nipples already hardening without even a touch.

Okay. Okay, he can handle that. But his gaze slips downward and he needs to take another few seconds, process _this_ , because attached to the bottom of the corset are garters of the same glossy gold, their clips fastened to silk stockings very nearly the tone of her skin, and on her feet...

Heels. Blue. They match the flowers.

He's never seen her wearing heels. Ever.

She's not wearing panties. Beneath the corset's edge, framed by the garters lying against her thighs, her bush and what he knows is just beneath it.

Then she spreads her legs and he can _see_ it, see her cunt, the dark pink of her lips already glistening and wet, and he really doesn't know if he can handle this after all.

Maybe Rick wants to kill him. Maybe that's what this is really about.

She smiles at him, laughs softly. "He... He said you'd like it." She looks up at him from under her lashes, almost demure, and he comes very close to whimpering. "Do you?"

Talking just isn't going to happen. Maybe a couple of minutes ago. It's a joke now. He can't even get as far as syllables. He nods, and he hates his own clothes with a furious passion.

"Good." Her voice is so soft, soft and breathy as it's ever been, but she says that word and he hears something else in it - barely there at all, and he doubts it's coming easily to her, but he recognizes it instantly. The firmness. Hint of steel.

He talks to her like that.

She had a hand at her side, and now he realizes that it was covering something. She moves it and lifts it, gripping what she was covering, and every last bit of moisture in his mouth evaporates instantly.

It's a dog collar. Black leather, studded. And a leash.

 _Oh_.

Something happens to him. It's happened with Rick, a bit - intense, in fact, and at its most intense it's overwhelming, impossible to fight. But this is different, this is somehow deeper and rougher and more complete, and everything in him sort of... _collapses_. Everything is thick and heavy, and flowing under his skin like a summer river. He gazes at her and every cell in his body wants nothing more than to do whatever she says, and at that same moment she snaps a finger by her right leg and says, in a tone that's hesitant but clearly determined to maintain control, "Come."

He goes.

He stops in front of her; he knows how this is supposed to work, assuming she's operating according to the rules they usually work with. Simple. Don't do anything before instructed. Obey to the letter. When you obey, don't hesitate.

Almost shivering, he stares down at her, and as she returns that gaze with her own - wide and blue and unwavering, more confident every second - he wonders if punishment is in the picture here, and if so what it might entail.

Whether he wants to try to find out.

She licks her lips and spreads her legs a little wider, as if she might be ready to frame his hips, but instead she hooks the fingers of her free hand into his belt and gives it a slight jerk, and he pulls in a breath.

"Take this off." Still low, soft, firm. It slips into him and caresses its way down his throat and into his chest, vibrating his breastbone. "Take everythin' off." Another jerk. "Slow. I wanna watch you."

His hands are already moving, obedient before he even has to think about it, at the hem of his shirt and tugging it up and over his head. This was difficult for him at first, being naked in front of her. It felt like exposure beyond exposure, and it wasn't even only the scars - or he doesn't think so. It felt deeper and more tangled, all in knots and so hard to understand. Her seeing him like that... His body, this thing she clearly wanted to look at, and it was almost inconceivable to him. Then, bit by bit, it got better - it didn't ache or twist at him, and he felt no more instinctive desire to cringe away from her. It got easier. Then it got _good_. She looked at him and he wanted to be looked at, and then she looked at him and all he let her do was look and it drove her absolutely out of her mind.

Now, somehow, that's background. Faded. There, but it happened to someone else. He's stripping himself for her, shirt falling and going to work on his boots, his belt, his jeans, and he can feel the warm pressure of her gaze like a fingertip skating across his skin, raising gooseflesh everywhere it goes. His skin - rough, all ink and corded muscle and scars, and she knows every feature of his territory and it shouldn't feel different, but.

But he can hardly look at her.

He looks down and away and hisses softly as the air hits his cock, hears her soft answering breath - not even really a gasp - and steps out of his jeans and shorts and stands naked in front of her, cock jutting heavy and dark between his legs and his hands at his sides, awkward, trying not to squeeze them into fists.

This isn't like how it used to be. He's never felt like this with her before.

"Daryl," she murmurs, and he manages to swing his eyes up to her. She's sitting back a little, the collar and leash set down beside her, her attention moving down his body, and he realizes she's never really taken the time to look at him like this. Her hands, yes - exploring him in those first days, learning him as he found the strength to allow himself to be explored. But not her eyes.

She takes her time. She wanders, roams. He shifts his gaze away again but he _feels_ her, that warm butterfly-touch, and a broken fragment of a moan catches in his throat.

It twists itself loose when she curls her hot little fingers around the base of his cock and strokes up to the head, down again, and she lets out a quiet laugh.

"I wasn't sure I could do this." She sounds thoughtful. Considering. He's only seeing her in quick flickers, glimpses as he can stand them, but the amused lift of her smile is impossible to miss. "Rick said I should try. Wasn't sure I even wanted to. But now..." She gives his cock a quick squeeze and he twitches his hips helplessly forward, an abortive thrust against her fist, though he knows he probably shouldn't.

But she laughs again. She sounds... She sounds very happy about this.

"I want to, Daryl." She strokes him again, again, slipping into an excruciatingly slow rhythm that sends ripples of low fire up through his veins. "And I think you want me to. 'cause I think you like this. Don't you?"

God, he just can't. If he's going to be expected to _answer_ her. He nods again, praying that's enough.

"I'm gonna try," she says, little more than a breath - and for those three words she sounds uncertain again. Just those three, because he can't hear a single trace of uncertainty in what she says next, and it breaks everything in him that she hadn't broken already.

"You're gonna be good for me." She pauses, and he looks at her long enough to see her bring her other hand forward and slide it between her legs, her fingers trailing lazily over her wet lips and up to her clit, her middle fingertip circling. "You're gonna be a good boy, Daryl."

 _Oh my God._ And maybe she can tell that his knees are literally about to give away and she's taking pity on him, because she gives his cock a harder tug and says, "Down."

He drops. He almost falls onto his knees in front of her, staring up at her now and unable to look anywhere else, at her flushed face and her slick cunt and her fingers playing there, the world full of her smell and the overwhelming sense memory of her taste. He's level with her. He could just lean in, lick his way into her, wreck this whole thing with how good he can make her feel.

Except he doubts that would work, and he doesn't want to anyway.

She combs her fingers into his hair and leaves them there for a few seconds, tugging his head slightly back as she nudges the glistening lips of her cunt apart, displaying herself for him. "Do you want me?"

It would take him about ten minutes to do justice to that answer. He ducks his head, silent.

"You wanna lick me? Or maybe you wanna fuck me?"

He should have guessed she could be cruel. All this time she was taking extremely good lessons. "Beth," he breathes, and she shakes her head and takes his jaw in her hand - not the painful grip he uses with her, but enough of a grip to make a point, and he can tell that she _could_ make it hurt if she wanted to.

"Don't talk," she whispers, leans down and in and kisses him.

It's hard right from the beginning, her tongue forcing its way past his lips and into his mouth, curling against his, and another moan is surging up in his throat when suddenly she's gone, and he barely has time to be disappointed when her fingers are there instead, pressing down on his tongue, and he can taste her salt-sweetness and his moan is nearly a sob.

"You can have more if you're good." She withdraws her fingers as suddenly as she did her mouth and he rocks back on his heels, bereft.

God, if she'll just tell him how to be good, he'll be the best. The absolute fucking _best_.

"C'mere." A hand in his hair again, tugging him forward; he already knows what's coming and it startles him, how much he wants it, how he's already extending his neck to make it easier for her, and he feels her smile when she kisses his brow, when she closes the collar around his neck and buckles it.

It's like the ghost of a shockwave from the inside out. It slams into him and shoves him against himself; he practically sags, the thing pressing hard against the side of his throat with her fingers still under its edge, and she gives him an upward jerk.

"I didn't say down."

No, she didn't. He finds the strength and pushes himself further upright, hands on his thighs, and the quiet metallic _click_ is a chime behind his eardrums as she hooks the ring of the collar to the leash.

Nothing for a moment. Just her fingers on his neck, under his jaw, the steady pound of the blood in his head and his chest and his cock, and his ragged breathing.

"Good boy," she whispers, and strokes a hand back into his hair, over it, petting him. There's something bizarrely calming about it, even as each fingertip is like a sprinkle of gasoline on the fire roaring around his backbone, and he presses into her hand with a sigh, cheek against her knee, nuzzling at the cool smoothness of her stocking.

"God, I don't even know what to do with you." She giggles, her delight so obvious and in itself so fucking delightful. Tiny flames in him leap and dance. "I should've planned something." She cups the back of his head and travels lower, over the nape of his neck to his shoulders, and he only tenses a little as her nails graze the highest edge of a scar. "You're such a jerk to me. You're an _asshole_. There's no way I could ever really get you back for it. Anyway, I dunno if I'm as mean as you."

_Girl, I think you might surprise yourself._

"But I do like you like this." She falls silent for a few seconds and he sinks into it, the stillness and her hand and the cool of her fingertips, like silk in themselves.

"Roll over."

He blinks. He's not sure he understands. The words in isolation, sure, but how they specifically apply-

She yanks on the leash, _hard_ , and the leather digs sharply into the skin under his jaw. He stares up at her, apprehensive in an entirely alien way, and what's in her eyes...

She knows she has him. If her hesitation isn't completely gone, it sure as hell isn't visible anymore.

"I said _roll over._ I'm not as mean as you. I can probably still be pretty mean." All at once she's on her feet and towering over him, and he shifts backward a little, a tiny whimper shivering in his throat. Another cruel jerk on the leash and it's choked back into his chest. "On your back or you don't get anythin'."

And that's clear enough. He can do that and the knowledge floods rich, relieved pleasure through him, and he unfolds himself, lowers, chin so close to the floor, her shoes, the collar pulled tight against his neck and the carpet rough on his skin as he turns onto his side and then his back. And if he felt exposed before it's almost painful now, stripped bare in a way he wasn't when he was standing, his chest and middle open to her and his cock throbbing against his belly, streaks of precome cooling on his skin when he stirs. She's standing over him, leash wrapped around her hand, her legs apart and the insides of her thighs smeared wet.

 _Please_.

"You're so hard," she murmurs, and lowers herself to straddle his thighs, the hand holding the leash braced on his hip. He lifts his head, trying to see her, and she tugs at him and gives him a teasing smile.

The way her breasts would fit into his hands. Her nipples hardening under his thumbs.

"Look at me." Another tug. "Watch what I'm doing." Her other hand reaching for him, and he whines softly as her fingers drift up his length, nothing more than the lightest touch - withdrawn as soon as he rolls his hips up to chase it.

"Bad boy." She pulls her hand back and he has time to take half a breath before she reaches across him and slaps his face. Not hard, not nearly as hard as he's slapped her, but it stings and he winces, the burn setting in, hotter under her hand when she keeps it there.

"You don't move unless I say." She returns her hand to his cock, that same feather-light caress joining with the burn, and he sighs heavily, edging into a moan. She knew he would like it. She _knew_.

"You love this." She smiles again and takes firmer hold of him, swiping her thumb up the underside and pulling carefully at his foreskin. "Look at that. You want me so bad." She lifts the leash and he knows she's doing it in significant part to display it to him. Remind him. As if he needed reminding. "You want my mouth?"

His teeth close on his lower lip. Bite hard. Bite until he tastes a hint of copper, to keep himself from breaking into desperate pleading. She's moving her hand into a rhythm - slow, regular slides - swiveling her wrist in the way she knows makes him wild, leaning close enough that he can feel the heat of her breath on his chest. "You're not gonna get it. Not yet, anyway. You want a treat, you gotta earn it."

 _Jesus, just tell me how._ He nods, shaky, and she ghosts her lips across his, suddenly speeding up even more, jerking him and rolling her hips, her cunt so wet against his thigh. "You don't come until I say," she breathes. "Don't you dare come, Daryl."

He's already close and she has to know it, and he twists under her, gasping against her mouth, sucking in her pleased laughter as she drags him toward the edge.

He shouldn't. But he mouths it. _Please, Beth._ The pressure of the collar, aching in his neck and the back of his spine and he's trying so hard to be good, his hands compressed stones at his sides, but he's going to-

She releases him, hand gone and her mouth gone and the heat of her hovering over his chest gone, and he sobs and arches, chasing her. Seeking her. His eyelids flutter and he catches a glimpse of shining gold brocade and shining gold hair, and her laughter floats to him like a dream.

"Down, boy." Her little hand on his chest, soft and warm. "Breathe."

He does. Focuses on that. He's desperate in it, trying so hard to forget the magma flowing through his cock - finding his own internal rhythm of expansion and collapse. But her hand is on him again and he moans and rolls his head, knowing what this is because he's done it to her so many times: edge and back. Edge and back. Never letting him over.

She might do this for _hours_. If she has the perfect balance of cruelty and self-control.

But at last she stops, sits back further, and doesn't tell him to breathe this time. Every single one of his muscles is vibrating like a plucked string as he lifts himself enough to see her once more, and she's looking down at him with that cocked-head thoughtfulness, and he knows where he's seen it before.

 _Rick_.

Asshole.

Her hand finds its way back to her cunt, fingers down her tight curls to spread her lips enough to show him her clit - standing out from its hood, pink and swollen and needy as he is. She circles it with a fingertip and draws in a breath, and he clenches his teeth and trembles.

"You're bein' real good." She smiles loosely, almost dreamily, her fingers moving a bit faster. "Tell you what, you make me come and you do a good job and you'll get a treat. Like I said. Now stay." She lifts herself and begins to shuffle up his body, her legs spread wide, and his mouth is already open and eager and wet as her cunt when she reaches him and stops with her knees framing his head. And he can see her, even in the shadow of her own body - the slick, delicate folds of her, the gleaming beads of wet gathered in her hair, and he can smell her, sweet and strong and just a bit of an edge.

He can't see her face anymore. But he can hear her grin. "You know what to do," she breathes, pulls at the leash and drags his face to her cunt at the moment she settles against him.

She collapses reality into herself. He can hardly breathe. He doesn't want to. This endless, streaming wet, soaked and soaking him, the smoothness of her as he tongues her lips apart and licks, laps at her, and he feels rather than hears her deep sigh and her _oh, good boy, yeah, that's so good._ The collar is digging into his skin and that's good too, it's good, so he won't forget his place. Under her like this, drowning in her juices, coaxing more out of her as he lashes at her clit, harder and then into softer flicks and swirls. Her hips have fallen into a slow, easy roll - she's riding his mouth, her knees firm against the sides of his head, locking him in place.

"You're so good, Daryl," she whispers - twists into a moan. "God, I love your tongue... Such a sweet boy, oh God, lick me, that's perfect... my _clit_ , right _there_ , good boy..."

He moans with her, rolls his own head up to meet her. His hands are still clenched at his sides and he's aching to touch her, aching to touch himself, but he's going to please her. He's going to be good. Going to be a good boy and earn whatever she wants to give him and be grateful for it. And isn't her cunt like this more than enough? Drinking her flow, listening to her moans and sighs and the fragments of his name and her saying how good he is, that she'll give him something nice, a treat, a reward, leash tight in her hand and tighter as her gasps twist harder and higher.

"Ah... _Daryl_." Her voice a strangled groan, the rocking of her hips growing almost frenzied. "Harder- Don't stop, you're gonna... That's so perfect, you good boy, like that- _Jesus_ , you're gonna do it, you're gonna make me come, _God_ -"

And she bears down, sudden and rough, grinding his head into the floor and yanking so hard on the leash that she chokes him, flooding so hot and wet into his mouth and his frantically working throat and lips and tongue.

For a moment - maybe two, maybe more - everything is still except for her shaky panting, those near-sounds that almost slide into laughter, and she lifts herself up and gives him room to breathe - gasping, heaving in air, his face a mess and his mouth and his nose still full of her, her taste and her scent smothering the rest of the world.

She moves above him, her position tipping back even further, and then her hand is on him, cupping his balls, the heel of her palm pressing down gentle but ruthless against the base of his cock. He's been able to bear it but this is fresh torture, and he whines and licks at his lips and tries to nuzzle her thigh, hips twitching upward before he has a prayer in hell of stopping them.

"Stay," she whispers again, and climbs off him, releasing the leash.

He's staying. He's absolutely still, gazing hazily up at the ceiling, her juices drying on his cheeks and chin and mouth where he hasn't been able to lick them off, and he hears her moving very close, can see quick, blurry flashes of her body, gold and cream and the faint sheen of silk.

Before, he didn't even really notice his cock. It was all her. Now it's difficult to think about anything else, anything but that savagely burning weight, hard as bone.

She said he could earn a treat. He figures he earned this too.

"Up," she says softly, and he pushes himself up, aching and a little stiff - and goes still again.

She's been like this before. He _loves_ her like this, demands it more often than not, though it does have its drawbacks. But he's sure this - like everything else - won't be what he's accustomed to, because though she's on her knees and elbows, her ass lifted high and her legs apart, her cunt dark pink and ready and dripping - presenting herself to him and _for_ him - she's also reaching back for the leash, taking it and giving him yet another sharp jerk.

"Come." She cranes her neck around, looks back, and what's in her eyes hooks him and drags him in harder and deeper than any leash ever could. "I want your cock. I want it in me. _Now_ , Daryl."

He's moving before she's even finished with his name, up on his knees and scrambling forward, shamelessly eager. Desperate. Desperate to have her but even more desperate to please her, to obey, and she pushes back against him when he takes her hips in his hands.

"You fuck me," she breathes, arching and spreading her legs wider. "Hard as you can." And she's in charge here, she has him collared and leashed and he's going to be so good, but he's called her _a bitch in heat_ before and it's hard not to stare down at her arched back and her rolling ass, even dressed in pretty brocade and silk, and not think of her that way.

So sure. Sure, he'll fuck her hard. Fuck her into the floor.

He knows she won't want it slow, won't want him to ease. He tightens his hold on her hip, grips himself and lines up, and she pulls in a sharp breath as he plunges into her tight, slick cunt as deep as he can go, his head dropping loosely back and a groan wrenching out of him. She clenches around him, thrusts herself right back, and hauls him downward with the leash, rising to meet him and actually growling his name.

"C'mon." She hisses it between her bared teeth, trying to fuck herself onto him, and the truth is that under the elegant packaging she's just as much of an animal like this as he is. "Gimme what you got. All of it. All of it, you son of a bitch."

And he grins against her shoulder, shoves her down against the floor, and gives it to her.

He's wondered occasionally where he really _could_ fuck her hard enough to do some real damage, but if that point is possible he hasn't yet found it. He digs his fingers into her hip and braces himself up on one hand, and he _slams_ himself against her, the smack of his thighs against hers like slaps against a face, fucking sharp little grunts out of her as she shoves herself back to meet him.

"Don't- God- Don't you come, don't you _dare_ , I'll make you... I'll make you _so_ sorry, Daryl, Jesus."

He knows. He knew it. And she brought him to the edge so many times before and she knew he would still be there now, his balls and cock swollen and throbbing like they've been kicked, everything in him straining toward it and straining to hold back, and his head drops between his shoulders and a broken sob tears out of him. And through it he doesn't stutter, doesn't miss a beat - fucks her like a machine, like it's all he's for, leather a band of fire around his neck and the tossing of her hair like flames in his eyes.

She's laughing again. Delight, pleasure - mischief. Oh, she can _definitely_ be mean. "Can't be _all_ you got. Fuck me... Ah, fuck me _harder_ , or I... I won't let you come 'til next _week_."

He's really not sure he's strong enough. Not sure he's strong enough for any of it. Used like this, over her but not over her at all, cock a lightning rod in the storm of her body and battering her with himself, knowing he won't break her, _can't_ break her, fucking rugburn into his knees, and though he knows he shouldn't talk he's gasping her name and what might be shattered fragments of a prayer to her. To release him. To end this.

To never end it at all.

But she does.

Not pity, he can tell; she stops because she wants to, snaps the leash and throws herself up and against him, and he fumbles backward, falling out of her and only just managing to catch himself. She pushes high onto her knees and turns and takes him by the hair, jerks his head back so rough it sends bright stinging bolts jabbing through his scalp and he shudders, squeezes his eyes shut, waits for what she wants now.

He can't see her but before he closed his eyes he saw enough. Her hair mussed, face flushed deep, eyes shining and skin gleaming with sweat. Fire leaping in her. If it escapes her it'll consume him.

"Sit," she breathes, and he does, settling back on his heels, hands on the floor to steady himself and his head bowed before her. The buckle of the collar cool against his skin.

God, it feels so _good_ to obey her.

Her hand slides out of his hair and strokes down his face, petting his cheek, his jaw, and he leans into it, nuzzling again with a soft and distinctly canine whimper - straining into something higher-pitched when she once more closes her hand firmly on his jaw.

"Beg."

For a fraction of a second he doesn't know what she means, doesn't understand what she wants, is frantic and almost terrified with his lack of comprehension. Then he gets it and he breaks apart inside, tumbles into his own throat, his tongue thick and useless and trying to push the words past his lips.

"Beth... Beth, shit, please lemme come, please... God, I wanna come so fuckin' bad, _please_ , I been good, I want... Fuck, I _want_ , I'm beggin' you, please lemme. Beth. I'll do anythin', anythin' you want, just. Please. Oh _God_ , please-"

She cuts him off with her fingers, pressing his cheeks against his teeth like he's held in a vise, and he goes silent except for another tiny whimper, a full-body shiver, his cock actual pain that runs deeper than the need to simply release pressure.

"Good boy," she whispers. "Oh, Daryl, that's such a good boy. Hold still, now."

Somehow he does. Somehow he does even she lowers herself into a half-recline, drapes herself over him, pushes his legs apart and takes his cock into her mouth.

He cries her name. He tries not to, really does, but the relief is so massive, slamming into him like he slammed into her, and the cry fractures into a sob as he nearly loses all his muscle tension and falls, nearly thrusts into her, nearly comes apart entirely. He might be sobbing, there might actually be tears, but all he's aware of is her _mouth_ , the glide of her lips and her tongue, the soft _mmm_ noise she makes as she takes him as deep as she can, her hand wrapped around his base and stroking him in sync with the bobbing of her head.

It can't be more than seconds. He was walking the edge and now she grabs him and flings him into the air, hurtles him over and sends him crashing down; he convulses, spasms and really _does_ almost fall, no shout or cry but a helpless sound that isn't a sob or a whimper or keening but something between them all. His hands grope at nothing as his back arches into the limb of a bow, drawn back and tight, and pleasure is the storm of her churning under his skin and through his bones.

And he's into the eye and dropped. Released. He crumples; he can't help it. He does catch himself on one hand but shakes, almost folds, gasping like he's been crying with everything around him roaring dark.

Her lips on his. He loosens even further and sinks into it, and as he does her lips part, part his own, and he tastes the warm, salty rush of her giving his come to him, his tongue curling unhesitatingly to take it in and his throat working as he swallows.

When she's given him all she has, she leans against him, brow against his temple, and smiles against his jaw.

"Lie down."

He obeys.

She directs his head into her lap and holds him for a while as he curls against her, limp and fucked out, and to the extent that he's even aware of things like that, he's happy. She's stroking him, hand working over his hair and his shoulder and back, sending him drifting into a deeper grayness that takes him comfortably in and cradles him. He has nothing more - for the moment - to do. He can just be content. He can just be with her.

He can just _be_.

But he _is_ still aware. Aware enough, anyway, to feel her tracing the curve of the collar with her fingertips, and to feel the meditative quality of the motion. He can feel her looking down at him, that same quiet meditation in her gaze.

She hooks a finger under the collar and gives it a tug, and he moans softly - a sound that's more relaxed than anything else.

But he knows she's started something.

"Think I want you to keep this on for now," she murmurs. "I like it. I like it a lot. Think I'm not the only one."

A pause, then another tug, and a smile so wide he can hear it before she even speaks, and it's like sunshine pooling over him, all the warmth she holds.

_Good boy._


	8. on the surface simplicity but the darkest pit in me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this got a tad bit out of hand. A couple of notes:
> 
> \- I've mentioned before that this side-fic is not being written in a strictly chronological manner. This is therefore a big jump forward in time - not sure how long but many months - and subsequent chapters may or may not take place after it. In fact, the next chapter I have roughly planned is split in time, with the first half taking place concurrent with the very first chapter of this fic, and the second half taking place months after _this_ one.
> 
> Like, if you care at all about time anyway. If you're just here for the smut I wouldn't be overly concerned with it.
> 
> \- This starts intense and intensifies as it proceeds, and occasionally might dip into the upsetting for some people. I've been writing a lot of daddy kink lately and it does make a brief appearance here, along with an instance of overt incest roleplay. The final bit of it edges into roughness that almost gets violent. Just be warned. 
> 
> \- I'm aware that in real life this would be physically problematic for a number of reasons. This is extreme fantasy. As such, I'm free to ignore reality when it pleases me to do so. 
> 
> Title is once again from Bjork's ["Pagan Poetry",](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqF8_UcUQdQ) which is also a bit of a mood-setter.
> 
> Oh, and ETA? This is all Mollie's fault. All of it. Every single fucking word. jfc Mollie can you STOP
> 
> Hope you enjoy. <3

There's no one point at which all three of them have the thought. When it arrives, it does so mostly unnoticed, sneaking in through the back door and creeping along walls, making a space for itself so gradually that by the time it's settled and visible it's been there for a long time and it's too late to dislodge it.

If they wanted to, any of the three of them. Which they don't.

Here's the thing: it's been a while since this all began. There's still nothing formal, but it's been long enough that either no one expects it to be formalized or anyone who did has learned to deal with the fact that it's likely not going to happen. The arrangement is what it is, it's strong, and no whispering or gossip or odd looks are going to shake it. Early on, Aaron talked to Daryl about this, about how it took a while for some people to accept him and Eric and he distinctly sensed that some people never would. And that was just how it was. You find ways to be happy anyway. Shouldn't even be that hard.

It's not. Two of the three of them have learned it once already. People tend to stare when you're walking around with very visible bruises and you seem happy about it, and so does the person who presumably gave them to you.

They have what they have and they're happy, all three of them. And it's been a while.

So suddenly one day it's time to reexamine what they have.

~

The first time it actually comes up, she's on the living room floor playing with Judith, who's nearly ready to start taking some steps and is becoming a serious hassle, already willful, already probably - as Beth observes more than once, flashing a brilliant grin - set to be just as much of a problem as her father. She has far more energy than her little body should be able to contain and she's taken to crowing gleefully and throwing her stuffed blue rabbit and her plastic brontosaurus, which Beth is faithfully pursuing and bringing back and finally pushing Judith onto the rug and tickling her until she's laughing even harder and kicking her chubby legs and grabbing at a waterfall of blond hair.

And Daryl's leaning against the back of the couch and Rick is standing in the entryway to the dining room, and they both look at each other.

Don't need to say anything.

Beth lifts her head just in time, sees it happen. She doesn't need to say anything either, and she doesn't need to ask.

It'll be strange. What they have is strange and this will be stranger, and if people were murmuring before and have since mostly shut up, this might get them going again. Carl has been generally unconcerned with it, despite an initial weird adjustment period, and most of the rest of the family has simply shrugged and gotten over it; they already got over what Daryl and Beth were getting up to, and this isn't _that_ much more of a big deal.

But this will be strange. Especially how, eventually, they decide it should be done. Or the most surface-level things regarding how it should be done, how it _will_ be done, with no one keeping track so no one is ever entirely sure, which will make both possibilities true simultaneously. The details...

Yeah, probably better if no one else knows that part.

~

She's already shaking when they lead her upstairs.

Late morning. Carl will be sleeping over at a friend's, Michonne has Judith. The three of them will have the whole house to themselves until tomorrow. A whole day of this, a night of it, and all at once she's... Not afraid. Not exactly. But something about it feels bigger, feels _more,_ like this is crossing some new line even if on its face it's actually going to be relatively conventional. Or it will be unless one or more of them decides to mix things up, and she doesn't trust Rick any further than she can throw him.

Except she does. _God,_ she does, she trusts him so much.

That's why.

Daryl takes her by the shoulders, propels her toward the bed - firm and quick but not rough. She doesn't think they're going to be rough with her, at least not at first. Maybe not at all. This could be so many things, and they're all fully aware that the plan won't necessarily _do_ anything in terms of getting them to where they eventually intend to be, but that's not the point. This isn't really about anything practical and it's sure as fuck not about biology.

This is about something deeper.

So she drags in a shallow breath and almost stumbles when she sees the four coils of cotton rope waiting on the topsheet, and knows what they're going to do to her, how they're going to have her, and it crashes into her head like a breaking wave.

They talked about it, all three of them. But there are things she didn't want them to tell her. Things she wanted to be surprised by. Things she wanted to be _hit_ by, like this, even if it turns out she isn't really hit by or _with_ anything, and she didn't know it was going to be this way.

She's going to hurt by the end of it. She knows that too. Maybe a lot. No matter how gentle they might be.

Rick is moving past them, swift and smooth and quiet as a panther, taking a place on the other side of the bed and hooking his fingers into his belt, watching them both with head slightly tilted to one side. The shades are drawn most of the way closed but morning sun is flooding around them anyway, spilling into the room through whatever cracks and crevices it can find, and it casts him in a glow when it falls on him, his skin as warm to look at as she knows it would be to touch. Her fingertips are tingling as she watches him, as Daryl pushes her forward the last few feet and stops her at the side, big hands tight on her upper arms. She doesn't need to see his face to know that he's looking at Rick, waiting for further instruction, and she gasps again, strained, and leans against Daryl's chest, his heart thudding into her back.

He's so broad, so strong - such an essential fact about him but she's not always this keenly aware of it. Now she feels as if she's consumed something that's gradually shrinking her, and sooner or later he'll be able to pick her up in his hands and break her in half if he wanted to.

And of course the thought only makes her feel safer.

"He's gonna let you go," Rick says softly, "and you're gonna strip and you're gonna get on the bed. You understand me?"

She swallows. Nods. Daryl releases her with a low, gratified hum and she tugs her shirt up, going slow - or trying. She's still shaking, every nerve a rung bell, need pulsing through her and cycling all around the periphery of her body and stabbing into her cunt, swelling everything into a blunt, fat ache that's almost unbearable. By the time she gets her panties off she'll be sopping wet, and she already knows what their faces will do - those _smiles,_ Rick's undisguisedly smug and Daryl's simply darkly pleased. Because look how wet she got for them, look what a slut she is, how stiff her little nipples already are as she reaches back with trembling fingers to unhook her bra and Daryl moves around her, joins Rick, watches her in smoldering silence.

She almost wants to hide herself from them as she lets it fall, reaches down to shove her jeans toward her knees. She doesn't know when she last felt like this with either of them - young, small, in the hands of two rough men who in point of fact may or may not decide to be careful with her. Who have hurt her. Who _like_ to.

She's breathing fast and even shallower by the time she steps out of her panties and climbs naked onto the bed and settles back on her knees, folding in on herself and desperately fighting the urge to try to cover her bush with her hands, obscure the sheen she knows was already visible on the insides of her thighs. She's so wet, she's already _dripping,_ because _she's a slut and she wants it._

Wants it so bad.

Rick nods, approving, lays a hand on Daryl's shoulder and gently prods him forward. "Tie her."

Rick is good with knots but Daryl's the one who's really made a practice of it, who's _studied,_ and who loves the way in which it's methodical nearly to the point of ritual - who knows just how to bind her to keep her in place for a long, long time without doing her any serious damage. Now he's coming to her, already scanning her with calculating eyes, and she cringes back without moving, her own gaze passing down his body and catching at the way his erection is tenting his pants, just as ready for her. Just as needy.

She could make him weak. If she wanted to. She has.

She drags in a hard breath when he grips her shoulders again and turns her so she's lying straight, pushes her firmly back with a hand in the center of her chest, and when he taps the inside of her arm she immediately extends it, almost without meaning too. He did this a long time ago, trained her to respond to commands he would never have to actually speak aloud, and her body does what it's supposed to do without her even needing to consider the actions. So she lies there, knees together and her breathing coming fast and shallow, as he binds her wrists apart and over her head, half spread-eagle, already fighting a moan.

She _does_ moan when he lowers himself, parts her legs with a hard slap to the her thigh, and under her yelp of pain she hears Rick laugh.

"Go ahead."

Go ahead _what?_ Not to her, no, and it's clear what the _what_ is when two thick fingers plunge into her cunt, no warning and no slow entry. A single thrust that burns her and jerks another yelp out of her, a low whine as he fucks them roughly in and out of her, and she hears his own soft laugh, sees - in a blur - him turning his head.

"She's so fuckin' wet."

"Is she? Great. Make her wetter, maybe."

Daryl hums something that might be an affirmative, but she loses focus when he withdraws his hand and starts to tie her ankles, her legs wide apart, and the essential helplessness of the whole thing smacks into her like the flat of Daryl's hand. She tugs at the ropes - more experimental than anything else, blinking up at the ceiling and whimpering, unable to see either of them without turning her head, and she knows without having to be told that doing so will earn her a slap across the face.

Which possibly, at some point, she'll want.

Daryl is still kneeling between her legs, hands curved over her hips and pressing her into the mattress; the dark blur of the top of his head remains as he swings his attention back to Rick. "Blindfold her?"

A thoughtful sound. Maybe they've actually planned everything and this is for show - talking about her like she's not even human, like she's a goddamn _breeding animal_ \- or maybe this really is on the fly. Doesn't matter. It jolts fire through her anyway. She's a thing. She's a thing for them to take and possess and _use,_ and they will.

"We'll see. Not yet."

 _Not yet._ They might throw her into darkness. She's been there, it can be so sweet - quietly roaring and black, swallowing her. But she wants to see them. She wants to _see._

Wants to be here for this.

The sound of movement now - Rick coming toward her. She tugs at the ropes again, another whimper shivering out of her throat; Daryl can be a sadistic bastard but Rick is an _asshole,_ downright vindictive in how he holds and dispenses pleasure, and she knows he'll do exactly that. Knows he'll be awful to her today if he finds good opportunities.

Then his rough hand is against her jaw, warm fingertips gliding down it and angled to her mouth, tracing the parted seam of her lips. Between her legs, Daryl is moving, and when she feels another calloused finger circling her clit she nearly sobs.

"You're so pretty, baby," Rick murmurs. "God, look at you. Baby girl, you're ready for us, aren't you? Sweet little pussy all soaked? Wantin' this so bad?"

When he talks like this - when either of them does - it _does something_ to her and she twists herself again, arms and legs pulling and then spasming as Daryl slides his fingers back into her. And two of Rick's fingers are nudging her lips apart and heavy and salty on her tongue, and they're both in her, a preview of what she knows is going to happen, using her like the slut she always is for them, filling her holes and making her cry with how good it is.

"Yeah, you are. Don't wanna gag you, sweetheart. We wanna hear you scream, but you can't scream too loud, alright?" She still isn't looking directly at him, this sunlight-silhouetted figure looming over her, but she can hear his smile. "Don't wanna upset the neighbors. More than they already are."

She nods, makes a muffled _'es_ as he shoves deep into her, almost deep enough to make her gag, and then exactly that deep, almost into her fucking throat before he withdraws, taking thick ropes of spit with him.

"Oh, baby. You're gonna do that for our cocks, aren't you? Both of 'em." The bed gives under his weight and suddenly there are three fingers inside her as he slides one in alongside Daryl's, thrusting with him, and she arches her neck and makes a strained, lost sound that scrapes the back of her throat where his blunt nails grazed her.

"Gonna take everythin' we give you." Daryl now, and if Rick's voice is his usual smooth, fluid murmur, Daryl is _purring,_ the slightly grating rumble of an enormous cat. "Gonna fill you with it, girl. Gonna pump you full of come. You ready?"

"Actually, she's not ready." And she can feel warm breath on the inside of her thighs, feel the bed shift as he does, as _they_ do, quiet laughs, and she can't help it; she lifts her head and there they are, lying over her legs and inches from her cunt, and Rick has tangled a hand in Daryl's hair and is kissing him, tongue thrusting into his mouth with a flash of thick pink and a wet sound almost like fingers fucking into her. She sobs again, a series of weak, shuddering noises as both their heads dip, Rick pulling Daryl's down with him, and she doesn't see the kiss break - isn't sure it even really _does_ \- but abruptly two tongues are on her, swirling over her and nosing between her lips, and she throws her head back and keens.

It can't go on for long. No fucking way. But it feels like it goes on for _hours,_ strong swipes and the lightest scrape of teeth across a clit that feels like it must be the size of her _thumb,_ pulling her lips wide and tickling circles over her entrance, her legs spread so far her hamstrings burn. And she looks again - brave or stupid or both - and it's like they don't even really notice her, kissing each other over her, tongues tangled as they dive back in, one lavishing attention at the throbbing apex of her labia while the other licks down almost to her perineum. She can't take it, she just fucking can't; she's flooding everywhere, glimpses of their entire _faces_ wet with her, clear spider-silk strands of her juices trailing from their tongues and chins and noses when they raise their heads, and her entire throat is full of a single vast moan until words thrust through it and rain into the air.

"I'mgonnacome, oh my oh _Jesus_ Daryl I'mgonna Rick pleasepleasepleaseoh _FUCK._ "

"Come on, baby." She has no idea who says it, who tears themselves away from her for that second, doesn't care. "Come for us, it's okay. Get that tasty pussy all nice and messy, you can-"

There's more but she doesn't hear it. Rick said they wanted to hear her scream and she does, surges her entire body upward and cracks the joints of her arms, her legs, mouth wide and her breath a plucked string as she whips her head from side to side and comes and fucking _comes_ , and at the last minute someone jams fingers back into her and beckons rapidly and she feels that gush, that wonderful spurting _gush_ out of her, snaps her head up and sees a blur of clear droplets suspended in midair and an open mouth, maybe two, a confusion of tongues, happy moans under her wailing and then nothing at all as she falls back, and it just keeps rolling and rolling through her, and she honestly thinks she might pass the fuck out.

Possibly she does.

Flickers of light, glimpses. Movement over her and the rise and fall of the bed. Fingers withdrawing and then murmured voices, and when she turns her head she sees - unfocused - what looks like clothes falling and the tanned tone of skin coming into view. More shadows looming, and heat blasting across her face and the deep, musky smell of cock filling her nose. No idea whose it is; early on she discovered to her delight that Daryl and Rick both have unique scents, but she's still too far gone to parse the difference now. Just that it's close, that her mouth is watering for it, that she's beginning to focus and she perceives a big hand moving, stroking. Lifting and falling, laying the slick tip of it against her parted lips.

Instinctively, dreamily, she flicks her tongue out and swipes over it, traces the slit. The head is smooth, completely uncovered. Cut. Rick's.

Hands against the insides of her thighs, someone there, heavy heat. She doesn't turn her head but a dark hulk is over her, eating up the left periphery of her vision - huge. Holding her down in a way that requires no ropes or hands.

"Daryl gets you first," Rick says softly, a little breathlessly. "Then me. Then..." He laughs, still soft, and taps the head of his cock against her cheek, leaving smears of precome to cool in the air.

Daryl is bending low, hand on her breast, lips brushing her ear. "Then we take turns, girl."

"All fuckin' day. Maybe all night. Till you're all full of us."

"'cause we love you." Daryl turns her head with his fingers under her jaw, abruptly so gentle, and she meets his eyes and everything in her coils tight for reasons that have almost nothing to do with her cunt. Him and him and...

And they love her. And they're going to make something new. All three of them.

"We love you, Beth," Daryl whispers again, and thrusts into her.

It's harder than their fingers, hard and sudden enough that a cry bursts out of her and drowns his thick moan, trailing off into a long whine as he starts to fuck her. And this might have been gentle and slow, she half thought it could be, but he's moving fast and deep, gasping against her mouth and licking across her lips. She meets him with her own tongue - needing to taste him, needing it so fucking _bad,_ this man who loves her and who she loves so much it's agony, and then he's turning his head, lifting it, opening for what Rick offers him with a hand cupping the back of his head.

"Good boy." Hoarse. Weakening. She grins, she can summon up the brain to do that; Rick isn't a superhero. He can be brought to his knees. "Ah, _fuck,_ that's a good boy, get me wet for her."

Usually Daryl is collared when Rick is talking to him like that. But this is different, this is _special,_ and maybe everything they've ever done is bleeding together, and Daryl moans as he bobs his head, fucks her harder, shaking over her and in her, and as Rick pulls free with a wet _pop_ Daryl bares his teeth and presses his forehead against hers, and she wishes she could hold him. What this is. Wishes she could. It's not the first time he's done this, released inside her, but it is like this, it _is,_ and she cries out with him when he buries himself in her as deep as he can go and bites down on the base of her throat, one hand tangling in her hair and yanking so sharply she sees stars.

She doesn't think she should really be able to feel it. Isn't sure it's the kind of thing you can feel. But she _does_ : a steady rhythmic pulsing inside her and a rush of heat as he gives it to her.

Gives her what she needs.

For a moment there's nothing else. Just him still inside her, panting against her shoulder, trembling everywhere. And then, too soon, he's shoving himself up and away from her and falling to her side, his hand combing back into her damp hair.

Rick. Rick settling himself, grinning at her, like he wants to _eat_ her, he loves her so much, taking hold of himself and lowering and driving into her.

It's so hard, somehow it feels even harder than Daryl, and now she's aching - not bad, but she can feel it, her cunt tender inside and out and the muscles of her arms and legs straining. She whimpers, a stream of noise, and Daryl leans close and swallows it, and when she licks his lips she tastes the lingering sharp-salt taste of Rick's precome.

"Oh, baby." Braced over her, so close - coming to her in those same flashes, Rick's full lips and his clear, knife-blade eyes, teeth, his smile. So warm and so _sweet,_ even as he fucks her so hard it hurts. "You want it, honey? You want my come in you? You're gonna take it, you're gonna take it all, you dirty little whore, you little _bitch,_ you are..." He might not even know what he's saying anymore, obscenity after abusive obscenity falling past his lips, each one so delicious, soaking into her, and she rises to meet his thrusts as he pounds her, lapping at Daryl's mouth in something far too open and far too messy to be called a kiss, and Rick is there too, with both of them, biting and licking into them, nuzzling wet, tensing into a hard wrench of a groan as he rams into her and stiffens and convulses in a wave.

And again, it's there. The pulsing. The heat. Giving her himself.

Then just hazy, slow chaos. Mouths, skin. Hands all over her, stroking, lips scattering kisses across her face, quiet murmurs. That she's so good. She's such a sweet girl, she's so amazing. They love her so much. This is going to be so beautiful when it's done.

She just lies there and takes it.

That's pretty much how the rest of this day is probably going to go.

~

It does. But not immediately.

There's a period where it's all softness. Someone slips a straw into her mouth and she sucks down cool water. Someone is wiping off her face with something damp and equally cool. Kissing her neck, running hands all over her. Kissing her other places. Two hot mouths on her nipples, sucking and licking them into hard, throbbing nubs, gentle bites. Then fingers gliding down her belly and nestling between her legs, rubbing over her clit, so light and so teasing, and she can focus enough to see that it's Daryl, lying along her side again, gazing down at her with a lazy smile as he strokes her.

"You're so fuckin' beautiful." Her eyelids flutter and she wants to answer, but no words come, and she realizes she's already that far gone, already down here where she's always ultimately trying to be, warm and safe and untouchable by anything and anyone but the men who are tending to her. Using her.

"So beautiful," he repeats, and behind him a shape moves that can only be Rick, at a distance but still so _there_ in the way only Rick can occupy reality. "Christ, honey, I wanna see you come again."

He doesn't have to try for it. Barely a minute. He's returned his mouth to her nipple, teeth closing on it and fingers moving in quick, tight circles, and she snaps herself up and comes with a hard groan, something that almost manages to be his name, and when he laughs she hears Rick laughing with him.

Then he's gone.

She doesn't know how much later it is, but when she opens her eyes Rick is bending over her, pushing her legs wide, and she lets out another in what's shaping up to be a long string of whimpers, because he's jutting up so hard again and she knows he's not going to spare her.

"Alright, sweet girl." Nosing the head of his cock between her lips, sighing and sighing deeper and rougher when he thrusts into her, merciless and fast with no chance for her to catch her breath. Her whimpers turn into sobs, sobs which are immediately muffled when Daryl closes her hair into a fist and turns her head, pushes his cock past her lips and deep, nearly bottoming out against the back of her throat. She squeaks, tries to shake her head - instinctive, not really wanting him to stop - but it's too late and he pulls free, and this time Rick's laugh is dark as Daryl jerks her head up and slaps her across the face, stinging tears into her eyes.

"Don't you dare, girl." Not harsh. But she knows that tone. If she disobeys him she'll pay for it in spades. "You be good. You be good for me. Or you'll be so fuckin' sorry." In a single buck of his hips he's in her again and she tries not to choke, fails, and when he withdraws this time he trails runners of spit across her face.

"Take me," he breathes. "Take all of me, little girl. You take every fuckin' inch. Get me ready for you."

Everything they do, have done, bleeding together. Rick draws in a sharp breath, nearly a gasp, and she catches a glimpse of his eyes - wide, burning. She licks her lips, flicks her gaze back up to Daryl, finds the words she knows he wants.

"Yes, Daddy."

And when he fucks into her throat she takes him.

"Oh, baby, that's good... Baby girl..." His own words get lost somewhere and when she finds her focus, lips stretched around Daryl's shaft, Rick has dragged him back in and is biting at his lips, tugging hard on the bottom, and every single thing in the hold and form of Daryl's body is screaming _yours yours yours._

Rick bites down harder when he comes.

He's gone. Daryl yanks free of her and drops her head back to the pillow, appears between her thighs as if by magic, sinks into her and rocks his hips in a deep, steady rhythm. Rick has taken his place and again her mouth is filled - not with a hard rod but softening, though still heavy on her tongue. Rick strokes her hair, purrs, and he and Daryl have switched places in more ways than one.

"Clean me off, little girl. Lick it all up. All that come, you love it, don't you?" His voice drops, and she hears Daryl's ragged moan - as if he knows what's coming, what Rick will say, as if he can't fucking stand it. "Full of your daddy's come, Jesus, you dirty little slut. You dirty fuckin' _slut_ , this is so bad, you know what could happen. You know what you've _done._ "

He doesn't specify. Doesn't get clearer than that. But it's enough, and it's so _twisted_ and it's so _filthy,_ so _horribly wrong,_ and she wails with her mouth full of him as her orgasm rips her open, stabs her in the heart.

And then Daryl is growling and releasing hot into her, and it's so fucking good.

It's so _fucking_ good.

~

Another long period of nothing. She doesn't know how long; she knows the quality of the sunlight changes. More water, someone bathing her face, talking in low voices. She can't make out any of the words, but that's fine; she's fairly certain she doesn't need to. If they say something she needs to understand, they'll make sure she gets it.

Fingers in her, this time slick with what she vaguely assumes is lube, and they're gentle and the soft ache inside her is pleasant. Then a body against her, lying on top of her - Rick again, his scent and his voice whispering endearments in her ear as he enters her, and this time he's careful and she sighs her way through it as Daryl lies alongside her and drifts his lips across her brow, combs through the tangles of her hair, lifts his head and kisses Rick as slow and deep as he's fucking her.

And at some point they switch. And that goes on for a while.

And then they leave her be again.

~

It might be as much as an hour or so later when someone begins untying her wrists, someone else working on her ankles, and only then does she really feel how much her limbs are strained and stiff, how they're tingling, half asleep, and she releases a pained little sound as she's rubbed down. But it's good, even now it's good, half gone with her cunt fucked raw, and when hands settle on her hips and roll her onto her side she goes without resisting, happy to simply be in a different position.

When a slippery finger nudges into the crack of her ass and she realizes what it means, she's a touch less happy.

Except she is. Oh my _God,_ she is.

Daryl again, behind her, rolling his hips against her as he spreads her with one hand and glides his fingertip around her asshole - teasing, knowing how to drive her insane this way, even now, and smiling against the shell of her ear as she twitches and gasps.

Rick is lying in front of her; she realizes it suddenly, isn't even sure how long he's been there, but all at once she's held between them and Rick's finger slips into her cunt at the same moment Daryl pushes into her ass, and she tightens up so hard and so fast it hurts her, arching and grinding out a mutated combination of their names.

It's amazing. It's completely awful. Already it's like being split open.

She has no idea how it feels.

"Gonna have you." Daryl's voice is like distant thunder, and he kisses her hair. "Both of us at once. You can take it, honey. I know you can."

He sounds certain. As if it's already been decided, as if nothing now can gainsay it. But Rick lays his fingertips over her mouth, gentle again, and she knows.

_Remember._

She nods.

She shudders as Daryl works her open - slow as he always is, little by little, one finger and deeper and, when she nods again, two. And Rick isn't fucking her; he's pressing wet fingers against her clit and mouthing words against her cheek with soft, warm lips, talking her through it - that she's strong and she's incredible and she makes them both feel so good, they can't get enough of her, they would crawl on their _hands and knees_ for her, they're both so completely hers.

All hers.

She sighs when Daryl pushes into her, drops her head back against his shoulder as he closes a tight hand on her hip and rests inside her, matching her breathing - stuttering with her when Rick cups her breast and scratches so lightly over her nipple with his thumbnail. _Push_ and rest, _push_ and rest, until he's balls deep in her and she's panting, and it doesn't hurt anymore.

She's rolled again. Lifted and positioned by two sets of hands, Daryl slipping out of her, and she lets out a whimper of disappointment that dies a quick death when she's placed on top of Rick and Daryl guides his cock into her, barely giving her time to adjust before he's crouching over her, gripping her hips - inside her again too.

Both of them.

She might have screamed. She's not sure. Her throat is as raw as her cunt feels and both of them are gasping, Rick grating _oh, FUCK, yeah,_ but it doesn't hurt. Somehow it doesn't hurt at all. They've never done this, not yet, and part of her knew they were going to eventually and always expected it would hurt, it almost seemed like it would _have_ to... But it doesn't.

She's just so _full._

She lets her head fall against Rick's shoulder, groans, tucks her face against his neck and soaks in the vibration of his pleased laughter. Above her, echoing her groan, Daryl is gathering her hair back from her face, making a ponytail with his fist. Her hair is damp, everything is damp; suddenly she can really _feel_ herself, feel _them,_ and they're all beaded with sweat, smelling of it and of come, and she can feel it mingling and dripping down the insides of her thighs.

And they aren't done.

It does hurt when they start to move, the stretch burning into her, lancing into her core. It's clumsy, uneven, but the sounds they make are pleasure-choked, near pained themselves, Rick gripping her hips and rolling up into her, Daryl's hands on her shoulders as he finds a shallow rhythm and tries to hold to it.

It doesn't feel _good._ But it does. Hearing them, knowing what she's doing to them... It absolutely does.

"Can feel you," Rick hisses, flash of his bared teeth. "Daryl, I can fuckin' _feel_ you, Jesus _God..._ "

The noise he gets in response is grinding, helpless, utterly devoid of words, but when he drops his face against Beth's shoulder his lips are moving.

_Love you, oh my God, I love you, I love-_

Either of them. Both.

There's no buildup. There's no crescendo of movement or moans. They just _come,_ both of them within seconds of each other, spilling into her cunt and into her ass, and through the calm fog that descends on her she can hear them shouting each other's names, crying hers.

Pumping her full of it.

~

This time is a very long time.

She blinks, left sprawled on her side, for the moment alone. Except... No, someone's in the room with her. Someone is moving around. Very faintly, the sound of the shower running. Someone opening a drawer, closing it again. Hands on her face and the straw between her lips, fingers stroking through her hair. A mouth against her brow.

She means to ask _what time is it_ and she must manage it, because Rick - it's Rick, it is - smiles against her cheek, kisses her there too. "Almost two." A pause. "Can you eat?"

She's not sure. But she nods. She's hungry, she's fucking _starving,_ and whether or not she can, she'll try.

"Be right back."

He leaves her. The shower cuts off. More low voices, the creak of the stairs. Footsteps coming into the bedroom; Daryl's body - solid and so big against her - pressing against her back. Curling himself around her, still damp from the shower.

"Y'alright?"

"Mmhm." She smiles. She doesn't have to try for it. She hurts everywhere, everything below her waist feels like it's been fucked out of shape, like her pelvis has been literally displaced. But it's so wonderful. She didn't expect it to be this wonderful. That they're having her like this, that they're _devouring_ her, and they're taking such good care of her.

He curves his palm over the front of her throat - loose, not squeezing. When he does it like this, it's comforting. Grounding. He's got her. He won't let her fall. "You remember. You can stop it anytime."

She smiles wider, somehow lifts a hand. Lays it over his and squeezes. There are words, and if she reaches for them she'll get them. She can.

"Don't wanna stop."

~

Rick brings her grapes, bread. Apple juice. Simple things. She attempts to lift herself and would probably have made it, but Daryl slides his hands under her arms and does it for her, pulls her smoothly up and settles her in his lap, her back to his chest, and Rick feeds her and even though she knows she could have handled it she lets him, because all she has to do is focus on his face to see that it's making him happy. So happy to take care of her.

He will. They both will. When she starts to change, when it gets different and her body doesn't work the way it did, when it gets difficult and maybe even bad, they'll take care of her.

She won't have to worry about a thing.

~

She drifts, and Daryl holds her and rocks her slightly, running his hands over her back and into her hair, and it's like he always does after he takes her especially far. Carrying her back; only a little way this time. She knows she's not coming back completely. She can't.

Not yet.

Then he's moving again, shifting out from under her and laying her down, and before she has a chance to right herself he scoops her up in his arms and she reaches for his neck on pure instinct, everything in her simultaneously collapsing and tensing.

Because it's always sweet when he carries her like this. And it's always kind of terrible.

He takes her into the hall and toward the bathroom, and she looks around, blinking. The afternoon sunlight seems very bright after hours in the dimmer bedroom. The whole place looks strange - the sheen of the hardwood, the off-white paint on the walls, the framed photograph of a ruined stone building covered in vines, which she's taken a special liking to. All of it appears deeper somehow, as if she can almost see through it. Through it to something else.

She lays her head against his shoulder as he nudges the bathroom door open. "Where's Rick?"

Daryl chuckles. "Takin' a fuckin' _nap._ I'd be doin' the same but I'm on watch." He kisses her temple. "For you."

"I'm fine," she mutters, but the irritation is feigned. She gets it. She knows why.

He would want someone tending to her, to whatever she needs. He never allow her to be left alone when she's like this. Even if Rick would. And Rick never would either.

"I know you're fine. Not the point." He sets her down on the cold tile and holds her until her legs stop wobbling, until she can take the few steps to the toilet. She sinks down onto it as he moves back toward the tub, bends over it and turns on the water. She notes that the marks of the ropes are already fading and then looks up and watches him with half-lidded eyes; she wouldn't have much in the way of shame by this point anyway, but she's out of it enough and he seems far enough away that peeing with him in the room feels like the polar opposite of a big deal.

He draws the bath - just short of scalding, the way she likes - but before he helps her into it he holds her in place beside the tub, wets a cloth and washes her. Washes her everywhere, slow and almost meditative, sponging the streaks of come from the insides of her thighs and the sweat from her chest and neck, her face. She finds herself drifting into it, swaying a little and having to lean on him, her hands woven into his hair, and then it's like she blinks and she's in his arms again, and he's lowering her into the water.

She hisses at the sudden jump in temperature, twitches as he lets her go, subsides as the heat-prickles fade and roll off her like droplets. The water is opening for her, accepting her like he does, like Rick does - she could float in it and it would carry her. She tips back, all the aches in her simultaneously flaring and easing, and she feels...

She has no word for this. It's never been like this before.

How many times did they even _have_ her? She wasn't trying to keep track to begin with, but it's a seething mass of sound, and hands and cocks pounding into her, mouths on her skin, teeth on her lips, fingers rough on her tongue.

Silence floats over her like steam. She's aware of Daryl behind her, leaning over her and carefully wetting her hair, and reaching for something, and she smells the light, floral shampoo she likes to use for special occasions as he begins to work it through.

He takes his time with it. He doesn't just wash her hair; he massages her, strong fingers digging into her scalp, lulling her; by the time he rinses her and moves on to her shoulders she's drowsing. Even when he reaches her nipples and rubs them into hardness with the pads of his thumbs, she's still only half there, more of the part of her that can pay attention to anything submerged in liquid heat.

He shifts around beside her, moving over her ribs, her belly, and opens her thighs with a soft nudge of his hand. She rises back into the world and draws in a breath, not quite a gasp, and fights the urge to close her legs, because she's so sore, she's been fucked so long and so thoroughly and she doesn't think they're done with her, but his hand is insistent, though still gentle, and she gives in with a tiny whimper.

And it's not bad. He doesn't press into her. He parts her lips and pushes the water over her, lighter than the lightest flutter of his tongue, washing her cunt almost without touching her at all. And when he does touch her, a fingertip ghosting across her clit, it's soothing more than anything, and she raises her hips to the touch and sighs again.

"Good girl," he breathes, and she sees the barest edge of his smile, half lost in the dark tousled hair fallen across his face. "Ain't been comin' near enough."

"It's not for me," she whispers, and instantly she knows that's wrong, before he even shakes his head and shoots her a look that stops just short of reproachful.

"It's all for you." A quiet laugh rumbles out of him. "Alright, maybe not _all._ "

"It's..." She doesn't know what she was going to say and she doesn't care. She's gasping in shallow breaths, already shuddering as he coaxes her on with those relentlessly delicate strokes of his fingertip, and when she comes it's not an explosion, not a single bursting moment. It's just another wave, and it's as gentle as his hands have been, and she moans softly and goes loose, caught and kept from sliding beneath the water by his strong, sure hands.

He lifts her out, dries her, carries her back to bed. Rick is there, naked, and waiting.

So are the ropes.

~

Daryl took his time with her and the bath, and they both take their time with her now. Tying her wrists and ankles, they're touching her easily twice as much as they need to, fingers gliding across her wrists and the backs of her hands and the tops of her feet, the soles - she's ticklish there as a rule but now it's only a faint buzz of pleasure humming into her to join the rest of the heady mixture flowing through her veins. They lie on either side of her, scattering kisses over her, her face and neck and shoulders, hands dancing across her body and tangling fingers before they part again. She sighs, moans, drifts deeper into herself and the half-darkness behind her eyes, brought out of it only when fingers slick her with lube and she's slowly impaled on Rick's cock, gripped and lifted by hips that will surely be extravagantly bruised later, and her head falls back and she sobs in pain and relief as he braces over her and moves inside her, dark and holding her down and cursing under his breath.

Maybe it's that they've both come so many times. Maybe it's some special effort on their part. But it feels like it goes on for a long time, longer than usual and she shudders under him and twists against the ropes, and Daryl kisses her tears away before he drags himself up her body and tugs her mouth open with a pinching grip on her jaw.

This is her entire world now. This - her mouth and her cunt filled with them, their smell and their taste, their quiet sounds, murmurs, the things they're saying to her and each other. Daryl raking his fingers into Rick's hair and nodding their mouths together as Rick trembles and releases inside her, trading off, Rick kissing her so carefully as Daryl fucks her with long, smooth thrusts.

"Doin' so good, Beth, Christ, I can't believe it..." Laughter against her cheek, but the next words aren't for her. "She's got some _stamina_ in her, good _lord._ "

"Y'hear that?" Daryl's hand on her breast, fingers at her nipple, a playful tug that's nevertheless sharp enough to make her yelp. "Gonna wear us out, girl- _Fuck._ " And it washes back in like a tide, and he's leaning close, hand shifting up to her throat and briefly closing off her breath. "Still tight for me, baby. Don't matter... how much of a slut you are, how many times you take it-"

"-you're just as tight, little girl." Rick's teeth close on her ear, hot breath concealing the edge of another laugh. "For us. Sweet angel, just for us. Your-"

"-daddies," Daryl grates, jerks his hand away from her throat and tosses his head back and howls at the ceiling as he floods her.

~

This can't go on much longer. _They_ can't go on. To the extent she can still reason at all, she's sure of it. Hours have to have passed since she asked Rick what time it was; one of them has put the bedside lamps on and faces hover over hers, offer her more water, tuck her hair back. Things are so much looser now than they were at the beginning, and they're playing with her, petting her, stroking and scratching and biting her, passing her between them and casually making use of her mouth, tormenting her oversensitive clit with their fingers, and simply kissing her. Kissing her for extended stretches of time, kissing her lips sore and swollen, and when they decide to take pity on her they remain beside her, Rick straddling Daryl's lap, and as if in a dream she watches them kiss each other, Rick stroking both their half-hard cocks with one hand, eventually pressing Daryl back against the pillows and sliding down to take him in his mouth.

Daryl turns his head, meets her eyes and reaches between her legs, cups her plump lips, and everything snaps into piercing focus and she gasps.

There's absolutely no reason to assume it's going to happen tonight. These things can take weeks, months. Longer. No reason to believe.

But she does.

~

Dinner. Cold roast chicken, biscuits. Made before the fact but still good, and again they untie and feed her, Rick holding her this time, all of them sprawled on the bed and periodically tangled. Halfway through, Rick holds her legs open and Daryl pushes a finger into her, grinning at her whine, withdraws it - practically dripping with her and with them - and sucks it clean. Does it again and offers it to Rick.

"Dessert," Rick murmurs, licking his lips, and as she sags against him there's something in his voice that tells her it's nearly over.

They finish feeding her, finish eating, and everything changes. Darkens somehow. She's waiting for them to tie her up again but when they push her down and lay her out, neither of them makes a move to do so.

What they do is _seize_ her.

She thought they might not be rough with her. She was a fool. They already _have_ been rough with her, but not like this, manhandling her, almost seeming to fight over her until all at once they're flipping her onto her stomach, Rick forcing her mouth open and shoving three fingers past her lips as Daryl wrenches her legs apart and hauls her ass into the air.

She screams when he drives into her, when he grabs her hair and yanks her back with a hissed _fuck_ , screams around Rick's fingers, eyes welling with tears that overflow when he pulls her head into his lap and slaps his cock against the side of her face.

"Suck it, slut." That smile of his; she only catches a blurry fragment of it but it's there and it's beautiful and so cruel. "You get us one more time, we're gonna make you fuckin' feel it. We're gonna make you feel it for _days._ "

It hurts. It hurts so much. The urge to fight them, to try to get away, is close to overwhelming her, but a deeper part of her can't bear to. This is it, this is the last of it, this is also how they show her they love her, and if today has been so much of what they've done before bleeding into itself, this is part of it too. All those times with Daryl, that _first_ time, her head jammed against the worktable, grit embedded in her cheek, stiff leather edge digging into her flesh with every thrust.

Of course it has to be like this.

She chokes on Rick's cock and sobs, and Daryl fucks the _bones_ out of her, snarling at her, grabbing her by the wrists and dragging her arms back so hard pain shudders down her twisted spine. She's a slut, she's a dirty, filthy girl and this is all she wants, all she gets, they're going to give it to her because she deserves it, because they love her, because she's _theirs._

Daryl _roars_ when he comes. It's a completely inhuman sound, his jaws snapping at the back of her neck and biting her so hard she screams again, gagging and crying and shivering when he pulls out, crumpling when Rick releases her. She's been brought almost to this point plenty of times - to where she's weeping and shaking, pleading, begging Daryl or Rick or both of them to take some kind of pity on her and make it _stop_. But this feels deeper, she feels utterly lost and completely held between the two of them, and she doesn't have the words to beg them - _please no I can't no more no more please don't_ \- but she does have one word.

She won't use it. Knows she's not beyond what she can accept. But it's there, and she feels its outlines, the shape of it on her tongue, and she knows she's safe.

And screaming again when Rick throws her onto her back and uses his knees as a ramp to drag her to him, hands on her waist, her spine arched into a severe bow and her hands groping weakly and mindlessly for him as he pierces her. For _anything._

Caught and held. But not by Rick's hands.

"Take him, Beth. Take his cock. You can do it, you're almost there." Daryl is bent over her, that smell and that shape and his voice, his fingers threaded with hers, and she can't see his face but she doesn't need to. He has her. They both do. They'll carry her to the end of this, together. "Girl, that's so good, you're so _good_ , we love you so fuckin' much..." His fingertips are on her lips but not pushing in; he's stroking her, wiping away her tears, kissing her scarred brow and her scarred cheek and her swollen mouth-

And clenching her wrists into bands of bright pain, jerking her arms wide and holding her down.

"Fuck her." Another harsh growl, but she's never heard him talk to Rick like _that,_ sweet, dangerous darkness flooding into the room and smothering everything else, fluttering around the edges of her like a black moth. Something has broken open in Daryl, and through her tears and her pain she's aware of a bizarre kind of awe, Rick's eyes wide and shining. "Fuck the bitch."

He lunges in, all teeth and wild hair and wild _everything,_ not Rick's _good boy_ but a wolf who takes no collar, and she hears what he breathes against Rick's mouth and it whipcracks strange pleasure up from her core and all through her, fireworks under her skin.

_Fuck her to death._

She shouldn't be able to come. Not now. Not like this.

But she does.

~

It's over.

She knows, because they leave her alone for a little while, and there's a different quality to it. They're not pulling back to regroup. They're not planning another attack. They're just giving her space to breathe, a few minutes to herself. Rick pulls the blanket up over her, combs her hair back from her face, and leaves her with a single gentle swipe of his thumb down her cheekbone.

She hears more soft murmurs but they're delightfully inconsequential. Everything is. She's in about twelve different kinds of agony, but that also only matters inasmuch as it's pleasant - it is - and she knows her own body and its uses and limits well enough by now to be fairly sure there's nothing that will necessitate an awkward visit to the doctor.

She lies there, loose and fucked halfway to wonderful oblivion, covered with come and tears, spit, sweat, a total mess, and what she feels above everything else is triumph.

She didn't doubt that she could do this, that she could take what they were going to put her through. This weird fucking ordeal she decided she wanted, and they wanted to give her. But now she knows she can, she _has,_ and even if she can barely move she feels incandescent with power. With strength.

Fucked to death and she's still here.

They come back to her, curl around her, touch her, kiss her, whisper to her. Soothe her. They love her, _God,_ there's no way to tell her how much they love her. No way they could ever show her. No way but they'll try and they'll try even harder now, because their world is going to get bigger and weirder, and it's all hands on deck. They don't say this last but they don't need to, and she smiles and snuggles close to both of them at once, and when this time it's Rick who lifts her and carries her to another long bath and a welcome dose of painkillers she goes limp and unprotesting.

She could sleep. She could sleep for years. She won't - though she's not sure how much moving around she'll be able to do tomorrow, or indeed the day after - but she could.

She'll sleep with them. Held between them, their arms around her, she will. Her men, her _family,_ this life they're making together, and it's very strange and maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense a lot of the time, but the world never did make much sense anyway.

This is hers. No one is taking it away. She's not death's bitch and she's not carrying death around with her. These men gave themselves to her. One way or another, starting now, she's carrying fire.

She's carrying life.


	9. no second guesses or secret signs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is [ALL MOLLIE'S FAULT,](http://archiveofourown.org/series/262156) ALL OF IT, ALL.
> 
> OKAY. So I should note that I've never been pregnant or had a baby or breastfed, so while I did try to research things if I fucked up in an obvious silly way I apologize very much. 
> 
> What afflicts Beth in here is called vasospasm and it is the fucking WORST. Breastfeeding people often get it but you can apparently have it without breastfeeding, and that's, well, basically that's how I personally know it's the fucking worst.

She talked to Martha at the clinic, sure. Read books, when they could find them. Learned everything possible - not just her but Daryl, and in fact sometimes Daryl seemed even more intent on it than she did, far more nervous, and thank Christ one of the three of them has already been through this, at least sort of, because Beth honestly thinks maybe she and Daryl might have driven each other fucking insane.

Not even just with what might go wrong - she was not going to think about Lori, she was not, she was _not,_ and now they had a clinic and a doctor and two nurses and a third in training, but really they were all thinking about Lori at one time or another and none of them had to speak it aloud for all of them to know it. But not even that. Just how she would _change._ Before. After. The pain, the aches, the way she felt so fat and clumsy and had to pee all the goddamn _time,_ the way it was sometimes literally impossible to be comfortable, her feet and her back, and wanting so desperately to be fucked, just _fucked,_ fucked as hard as they could fuck her, and then what felt like minutes after swinging into not wanting them to touch her at all ever. Sore breasts, sore and _bigger,_ so weird, she's always been essentially flat-chested, or she's been called that, and used to be sensitive about it, and they still weren't really _big_ but sometimes they didn't even feel like hers anymore. Her whole body was sometimes a stranger, and not a particularly welcome one.

Not being able to sleep. Being so tired. Being _angry and sad_ for no goddamn reason. Like the world's worst and longest case of PMS.

She knew a lot of it was coming. Didn't make it easier to deal with, but she knew. And they knew. And there was so much good there too. They were so good to her. They took such good care of her.

And then it was over.

One month now into this new adventure, in the rocking chair they got for her and for this purpose, with little Annette, little Annie with her wispy blond hair and her big blue eyes that could be Beth's _or_ Daryl's _or_ Rick's, sweet perfect Annie falling asleep latched onto her breast, and sometimes it's frankly still kind of awful and she's not done changing, but sometimes, like now, it's so, so wonderful. And she has no idea how it could be any better.

Except she'd sort of like to get up.

She was drowsing herself for a while but now she's awake, and in the bedroom someone has turned on the bedside lamps, moving quietly enough that they didn't disturb her. Everything is warm and soft on an evening in late spring, and at times like this she can almost believe the world never ended at all.

Almost believe Annie will grow up in a world that isn't constantly trying to kill her.

She's adjusted to this idea much more easily than she thought she might. She's tough. Daryl is tough. Rick is tough. They've all survived so much. Annie has excellent pedigree.

But now she would kind of like Annie to go to bed.

Sometimes she wonders if Daryl can read her mind, anticipate what she'll need, and it's even truer these days. What they had before was so close, so deep, and she doesn't see how it could have gotten anything but deeper. So she's only just beginning to stir, shifting Annie in her arms - easy, Annie is a shockingly good sleeper but she has a voice and amazing stamina when it comes to using it - when he's there, moving quiet as a big cat, bending to her and reaching. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with one hand as he cups his other against the back of his daughter's head.

So small. His hands are big and rough but she already knew how careful he could be, how gentle, and he is.

"I can take her."

It's not _can._ He's practically asking her if she'll let him. One of the first times she truly _noticed_ him was that first time with Judith in his arms, bigger smile than she knew he was _capable_ of, and the first time he held his own daughter he kept it together and then, later, when it was just them and it was okay, burst into tears. He holds Annie and she's never seen him like that. Ever. Not with anyone.

With Rick, less than an hour after, that impossibly tiny, wrinkled young-old creature between them, both of them staring down in open awe.

 _We made her._ Under his breath, like he couldn't believe it, like he was trying to convince himself that it was true, and Rick laughing softly and kissing the corner of his mouth.

_Yeah. We did._

She smiles up at him, sleepy and grateful, and Annie's mouth slips loosely free as he takes her with exquisite care and tucks her against him.

"Hey, sweetheart. Hey, there." Just a whisper, lips against that soft little head as he turns away and takes her out, and she's lost him for the time being. There's a chair to match this one in the nursery - though she likes to do it in here - and there's also a daybed, and there's a better than average chance that rather than put Annie in her crib he'll end up dozing on the bed on his back, baby passed out cold on his chest. She's found them like that more than once.

Rick is there. Rick is _constantly_ there, every second he can be, solid and calm and so, so present, and hopelessly in love with this new being for which he's at least partially responsible. Rick is enraptured. But Rick isn't _stunned,_ and these days Daryl is stunned basically all the time, and Beth thinks he might still be trying to convince himself.

That it's possible that he had a hand in this, biologically or otherwise. That he's part of it.

He's the most delightful idiot.

She's smiling to herself as she starts to close her robe and sits straighter, arches her back and winces as it cracks in several places, and she's just getting up when it hits her.

Because one thing she didn't expect - that none of them expected, not even Rick - was the cold.

It comes on in a sudden wave - it _washes_ instead of stabbing. A relentless shriveling, pinching sensation in her nipple - in _both_ of them, which hardly ever happens - and she's hissing sharply and pulling in on herself as if trying to protect her breasts, from the _air,_ from the _world._ They've tortured her breasts and nipples, both men working together and each of them separately, bound them up until they were blood-flushed and tight and horrifically sensitive, twisted and pinched and pulled until she was in tears, bitten them, slapped them, used clothespins, tormented her until she was right at the edge of what she could take. It's been _worse_ than this. But it's never felt quite like it does when this happens.

Usually it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's painful. Right now it's agonizing.

If she warms them it should get better, but right now she doesn't want _anything_ touching them. Not even the ghost of contact. Nothing. Gravity itself is hurting her.

She moves toward the bed, arms folded across her chest, teeth capturing her bottom lip and forcing back a whimper. That much pressure in itself is bad, but it's better than leaving them exposed, even through her robe. The room itself isn't chilly but often that doesn't matter; she has a heating pad for this - among other reasons why it's a good thing to have these days - and she crouches, keeps an arm over herself and fumbles one-handed under the bed for it.

"Beth?"

She stills, looks up and over her shoulder, practically shivering.

She didn't lose him. He came back to her and now he's looming over her - comforting and not at all threatening in how big he looks and how small he makes her feel. She releases her lip and lets the whimper escape, because there's no point in playing a hero with him after he's seen her go through the things she has, and hugging herself like this, she knows he'll figure it out in about two seconds.

So then he's not looming anymore. He's dropping down beside her, hand on her shoulder, turning her toward him and looking her over, brow furrowed and eyes keen. "Cold?"

She nods. "It's worse than normal. I dunno why."

He doesn't touch her more than he is. He knows not to. First time this happened, her swollen nipple going pale and bloodless at the tip, Rick - trying to help but unfamiliar with this particular phenomenon - put his hand on her too roughly and her yelp of pain was a really a lot closer to a holler. If he touches her at all he'll have to be so, so careful.

All at once there's something flashing across his face, and he takes her other shoulder and gently draws her up with him when he stands, and she doesn't want to fight him. She squeezes her eyes shut and leans against him, releasing a shuddering sigh.

He nudges her at the bed. "C'mon."

She goes, still holding onto herself, crawling onto it and turning, not at all surprised when he follows her. He still looks bigger than usual, all corded muscle, dark hair half obscuring his eyes, and she wonders if it's because she _wants_ to see him that way, wants to see him as something especially powerful, because right now she doesn't feel strong but she doesn't want strength to be too distant.

Like he can carry hers for her until she can take it back.

And she always feels so safe with him.

He slides up beside her and leans against the pillows, and takes her shoulder again, tugging her backward. She can tell what he wants her to do, where he's putting her, and it's not the heating pad but suddenly it seems like the best possible thing, something utterly desirable, and she shifts in between his spread legs, settling back against his chest. The robe still feels so thin but now she can also feel - in a way she couldn't before - just how _warm_ he is, warmer than the pad could be, radiating heat that wraps around her like an electric blanket. She sighs, shudders very slightly, and shudders again when he reaches forward and raises his hands, hovering inches from her chest.

"You tell me if it hurts too much?"

She nods. She will. But somehow she doesn't expect it to be a problem. No matter how much it hurts now.

"Good girl." Thick fingers sliding under the fold of her robe, tugging it aside, and it's just like she knew it would be: her pale nipples shriveled and peaked with cold, making it even worse simply to see, and she nearly whimpers again - and gives up and allows it to escape when he closes his palms over them.

It hurts. But not too much.

His hands - so big and scarred and rough, yet when he touched her for the first time to give her a whole new kind of pleasure, she was almost shocked by how soft they could feel, and they feel that way now. Warm as the rest of him, cupping her, not moving at all. Just giving her his heat, letting it flow into her, and she closes her eyes against the low lamplight and takes the rest of him in. His solidity, the thump of his heart against her, the slow rise and fall of his breathing and how it almost feels as if he's rocking her back and forth with his own respiration, soothing her. How he smells: still faintly of leather and sweat and engine grease, fuel and decay - because he was out for three days and only came home this afternoon and even a shower doesn't get rid of it entirely - but also like clean baby, like soap and powder and that sweet, indescribable Baby Smell that isn't at all a myth.

He smells like home. _Feels_ like home. And all at once her throat tightens and lumps, her closed eyes sting, and a harbinger-tremble of a sob rolls through her.

Of course he feels it. Of course he stiffens the tiniest bit and lowers his head, lips close to her ear.

"Is it-?"

"It's okay." She blinks hard, wipes at her eyes. She did and does cry more easily, though not to the point where it becomes an annoyance. And she could always cry in front of them anyway. They've _made_ her cry. They _like_ it when she does, when it's because of that. Regardless, it isn't weakness, or not weakness of which she needs to be ashamed. "It's just..."

"Beth, what?" Not really concerned, not yet, but she can hear the edge of it in his voice and she scrambles to head it off.

"You take care of me," she whispers, a little strained. "You both take so much care of me, and it's..."

"Oh, sweetheart." He kisses her temple, lingering, and almost imperceptibly gathers her closer to him, and she _is_ crying now, letting it roll through her and bleed out the tension, the pain. He didn't really use these endearments with her before - she was never sure why, though their absence didn't bother her - but when she started calling him _Daddy_ they started to drift through the boundary between playing and not, one of the very few things that has, and she likes it.

_Sweetheart. Honey. Angel. Baby girl._

Maybe he can feel that she's loosening, because he's finally moving, working his hands in the lightest possible kneading motions. Massaging her. Aside from the spasms in her nipples she was sore anyway, and it simultaneously hurts again and feels _so_ good.

"Better?"

She nods. Better every second, the pain covered over by an incoming tide of pleasure - and the pleasure is deepening, and she presses back against him. When she speaks her voice is hoarse, and it has next to nothing to do with her crying.

"A lot better."

"Good." Low murmur, almost a purr, and when she presses again and he tightens his hands and heat of a very different kind begins to uncoil in her, she knows he knows.

She can feel it, hardening against the small of her back - thickening, aching for her - and she moans softly. He can touch her breasts like this without really responding to her - touch _all_ of her right now without really responding to her - and that's good, she's discovered that it makes her more comfortable sometimes even if she's not altogether comfortable with _that,_ but there's also this. And she wants this with a sudden intensity that snaps inside her like flying sparks.

For the last few weeks she hasn't, not really. She's been recovering, and for whatever reason her body set sex aside. But about a week ago that started to change, her fingers started finding their way to her cunt again, and theirs followed very soon after, followed by lips and tongues, and _Christ_ wasn't that such a relief.

Made her feel beautiful again. Made her feel _wanted._ She always was, she knows that - if anything they seemed to absolutely _luxuriate_ in her body's changes and new territory to explore - but even so.

Now he's hard for her and that alone is pulsing wet heat through her, blood rushing south and making her lips and clit feel as plump and swollen as her breasts, and she tips her head back against his shoulder and moans again. Because his _hands._ Her relaxed nipples un-relaxing, pressing eager little nubs into the creases of his palms.

"Daryl..."

"What?" And even as he says it he's rocking his hips in a lazy grind, tugging her up and sliding his shaft against the crack of her ass.

Oh, _fuck_ him.

She squirms, legs falling open. Under her robe she's only wearing plain white cotton panties and she knows without having to look that she's already soaking through them, dark spot spreading. "Touch me."

"Am."

Okay, might as well vocalize. "Fuck you, you..."

"Language, girl." But he's releasing her with his right hand and beginning to drift downward, over the bumps and dips of her ribs - less prominent now that she has slight curves she never had before - to her belly, making her muscles twitch and jump. And he stops there for a moment, stroking her, almost petting her - neither him nor Rick ever as bothered by the stretch marks as she was for a while.

"Jesus, you're so beautiful." He sounds almost reverent and her breath hitches and she laughs and cants backward, rubbing his cock with her tailbone.

"Gonna make me cry again."

"You do whatever you want." Lower, casual, almost like he doesn't mean to, and she clenches her hands on his thighs, digging in with her nails as his fingertips slip beneath the elastic of her panties and ghost along the edges of her pubic hair. Sometimes he actually gives Rick a run for his money in _asshole._ "I'm havin' fun."

"You're havin'- _oh._ " Because a bolt of pleasure shoots down her spine like his crossbow sent it, and it's not his fingers on her cunt, her throbbing clit - he isn't even touching her there yet. It's her nipple, his fingers _there,_ a butterfly-light caress with his calloused pads that nevertheless kicks her forward in an arch, seeking more of it, her breath stuttering.

God, he could. He could. Maybe just that. She hasn't, doesn't know... But maybe. It might be possible, with just that, and the thought alone pinches at her clit and she whines, wriggling against him, getting at least a sliver of satisfaction when he stiffens and gasps. But he's still just _teasing_ her, not touching her enough in either place, and she hisses through clenched teeth and twists under his hands, all the pain of before completely forgotten, and she's just going to give him _so_ much shit for this when she gets a chance-

And there's shadowy movement in periphery of her vision, at the bedroom door, and when she meets Rick's cool blue gaze his hand might as well be on her too.

She jumps, and he smiles.

"What's goin' on?" A drawl, like he hasn't walked in on anything much. Behind her - subtle but unmistakeable - Daryl's breathing has quickened. "How's our girl?"

"Needed to get warmed up." Just as casual. Like he's not straining against her, like she could swear what was already hard and thick is harder and thicker against her ass. Rick is coming toward the bed at a meandering pace to match his speech, unbuttoning his uniform shirt, gaze moving appraisingly over her body - not much left covered by her open robe, her thighs pressing together and parting in a desperate semi-rhythm.

She knows that specifically cool gaze, what's behind it, what he thinks when he sees her like this. He hasn't treated her this way since Annie was born, giving her whatever space she needs - and he still won't if he isn't sure she wants it - but what he's thinking.

_Little slut. Dirty little bitch in heat, you want it, don't you? Want all your holes stuffed, want it any way you can get it. Gonna give it to you, you come-slut. Pump you full. You're gonna take it till you're screaming._

She trembles, lets out a tiny pathetic noise, and he grins, shrugs off his shirt, starts to tug his undershirt over his head. Daryl's fingers have slipped out of her panties but now they're drifting lower, lower, and she sobs a broken version of his name when he finds her clit through the wet fabric and presses.

Starts to rub in slow circles.

Apparently losing the shirt is enough for Rick for now, and he reaches down to remove his boots, crawling onto the bed with his erection tenting his pants, and she can't stop gazing at it. It's too soon, she told them - she wants them, wants them so bad, but she doesn't feel ready yet to have anything inside her. But she can look at it and imagine, want it, yes - stuffing her full, pounding into her, making her scream.

"Aw, baby. Poor little tits all cold?" He's cooing to her - not quite in Daddy Mode, but edging as close as he is jolts into her and she must be _drenched._ Daryl laughs at that, low and rich, circles her nipple with his thumb and her lungs twist themselves closed. "Don't look cold now."

"Gotta make sure," Daryl murmurs, lips against her ear again - tongue trailing up the edge of the shell of cartilage, cool and hot at once, and she's incoherent and shivering as Rick closes his hand over her bare breast.

"I dunno, baby. They feel all hard to me."

"They're- I-" Trying to shove herself into his hand, Daryl's hand, her cunt against his other, lost already and just about begging them, and what the fuck is she holding out for, anyway? She opens her mouth for another try but all she gets out is a dense moan when Rick seals his mouth over hers, thrusts into her with his tongue - like if he can't fuck her cunt he'll show her what he _would_ do.

"She wants to come," Daryl breathes - tries. He's actually starting to sound a bit breathless as he ruts quicker against her. "Still such a _slut._ What d'you think?"

"Think we should take care of that." And she sobs in relief, bucking her hips up as Rick lines himself up beside her, hand still on her breast, taking her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and rolling it gently back and forth. "Hear that, pretty girl? Didn't even have to ask."

She tries to make a _thank you_ happen, because even if they aren't exactly playing, some rules always apply and she has to mind her manners with the men she belongs to, but just then Daryl slips his hand away from her and _plunges_ it beneath her waistband, all his teasing gone, cupping her mound in his palm and gliding his fingers over her plump, pulsing lips, through the steady flow of her juices, returning to her thrumming clit and circling her. And she can't help it and she doesn't _have to;_ those wicked fingers and his thumb on her nipple, Rick flicking at her other and licking at her neck, two hard, strong bodies holding her between them and caring so much for her and _taking_ her, and a thin cry forces out of her and her spine whipcracks forward as her orgasm slams into her, expanding shockwaves from her clit and gripping her muscles and pulling her face into a grimace-

And abruptly she knows what's coming with it and she can't stop this either, feels panic following her pleasure, and the familiar warm, forceful tingle ripples through her core and she watches, vaguely horrified and very fascinated, as milk spurts between their fingers and all over their hands.

It's like everything freezes.

She can't see Daryl. She _can_ see Rick, and he's staring at her with wide eyes - one of the few times she's ever seen him _really_ surprised by her, his lips parted and moving.

"Oh God, Rick, I-" And it comes again, less intense than the first but surging through her, another well of milk trickling down their wrists and her ribs and dripping onto her belly. It hasn't been quite like this, she didn't know it could be, and she keens, realizes she's coming a second time, her head dropping back and her mouth wide as she floods against Daryl's quivering fingers.

Maybe it shouldn't be like this at all. The panic is settled into the back of her mind, churning. Oh God, she's done so many filthy, _twisted_ things, and it seems beyond strange to think of this as filthy or twisted but what if it's too much, what if this is a step over some kind of line, and she's trying to lift her head, maybe say _I'm sorry,_ when Rick ducks his head - _dives_ \- and closes his lips over her nipple and sucks.

She gapes blankly down at him.

What snaps her out of it is her teat popping free as Daryl shifts her, maneuvers himself carefully out from behind her and lays her against the pillows in the cradle of heat his body left, and as she watches him lower himself down her side she can just barely process what's coming before he takes her other nipple in his mouth.

If she wasn't lying down she would collapse.

She doesn't know if this is another climax, these heavy waves crashing through her as they suckle her, Daryl's fingers still dancing over her clit. She has no idea. This is completely uncharted territory. Their quiet moans, the bulges of their cocks rubbing against her legs, clasped between them and every bit as helpless as she would be if they tied her. All instinct, she raises her hands and cups the backs of their heads, fingers combing into their hair. This is _release,_ pouring herself into them, them drinking her down, _feeding_ on her, and she's never felt _used_ this way.

Loved.

She's gasping, streams of sound that almost curdle into words, and finally she can't watch anymore and the pillows catch her head as the last of her muscle tension flows down their throats, and it's all she can do just to breathe when Rick withdraws and lifts himself, strong hand cupping her face and turning her to look at him.

Flushed, eyes so bright. Keen as always, but also half wild. She's not sure she's ever seen him look like this.

"You taste so fuckin' sweet, Beth." His lips brush over hers, nearly kissing her as he speaks, and when she flicks her tongue out along them they really are literally _sweet_ and oh my God, it's her.

Maybe she should have experimented this way but she hasn't. She didn't know. It _is_ sweet. Faintly so. She closes her hand around his wrist and licks her lips and stares at him when he pulls back again, at his smile.

He looks almost giddy.

"Show her how good she tastes." His hand alongside hers in Daryl's hair, tugging lightly. "Show her, Daryl."

She's not sure what he means. Then she knows - Daryl pulls back too and she knows when he raises himself and takes hold of her jaw, leans in and parts her lips with his and spills her own milk onto her tongue.

Sweet. Smooth. Oddly rich. Unlike anything else she's ever tasted - or can remember ever tasting. Rick is still stroking her nipples, still so gentle, and she grinds her cunt against Daryl's fingers as he kisses her taste into her and gropes mindlessly for both of them and sobs.

And after a while everything slows down.

She's panting like she's been running. All three of them are, two broad chests expanding against her sides, so much heat. Both of them half dressed, her too with her robe spread wide and her sopping panties cooling against her skin as the air begins to dry her.

But she's not cold anymore.

Rick kisses her temple. "Better, honey?"

"Oh my _God._ " The last word comes out in a cascade of loose laughter as she lifts a hand and presses the heel of her palm against her brow. "Holy shit. Holy _shit._ "

Daryl rumbles laughter, grazes his teeth along her collarbone. "You ain't done, girl."

She raises her head, confused. Not- But they aren't going to fuck her. Can't be. They know not to do that. They never have and never _would_ knowingly do something she doesn't want. But Daryl is grinding himself against her hip, and Rick takes her hand, places it over the cloth-trapped length of his cock and she feels it twitch against her palm.

"Took care of you, baby girl." Rick smiles against her jaw, her ear, closes his teeth briefly on her. "Now you take care of us."

She pushes herself up, though she doesn't try to pull her hand away, and she looks from one to the other - Rick's glowing eyes, Daryl's dark and all shadow. Their hands suddenly aren't nearly as gentle as they were, gripping her thigh, her upper arm, half lifting her. She jerks, gasps - surprised more than anything. "What-"

"On your knees." Even Rick's growl is as smooth as honey. "Get."

She doesn't think. She moves.

They were careful with her when they knew they had to be, but she made it clear to them that she wouldn't break - how fucking tough does her body have to be, to handle what's happening to it with such relative ease? But they haven't handled her like this in weeks. Since a good while before she gave birth. Now Daryl has a hand between her shoulderblades, shoving her toward the foot of the bed, and she's almost entangled in her robe as she scrambles to obey.

She missed this. She missed this so fucking _much._

She hits her knees hard enough to give her mild rugburn later and then they're closing in on her, stripping off their clothes, and if there hadn't been any threat in the way Daryl was looming before, it's there now. Threat that's ultimately all play. Power. Control. She plays her part and cowers back a little, and Rick bends and rakes a hand into her hair and yanks her upright so roughly she sees stars.

The hard, glistening rods of their cocks, the thick musk of them, and as she drags in a breath and looks up Daryl fists himself and slaps it against the side of her face, precome a slick smear across her cheek and lips.

"Eyes down, slut." Then immediately, softer, "Down, sweetheart." He's asking a question, doing it - like he so often does - without actually asking.

_Is this okay? Are you okay?_

Oh my _God,_ is it okay. She swallows, nods, and drops her eyes to the blankness of the rug, obedient. She just came, she's sure she came more than once even if it's all bleeding together, but she's still soaked, still flooding wet between her thighs, dripping down their insides. She could probably go again. She really wonders.

But it's not about her now. She had her turn.

Rick jerks at her hair, pulls her head up. "Open up, baby. Open wide."

He barely gives her a chance. She's only just doing as she's told when the head of his cock is thrusting its way past her lips, both his hands in her hair, holding her in place as he fucks into her. She wavers, gags, and he doesn't let up, bottoming out against the back of her throat and pulling back and ramming in again until tears blur everything else away and saliva wells and dribbles from the corners of her mouth. She whimpers, locks her hands onto her own thighs, but that's not how it's going to be; she's hauled off Rick's cock and Daryl's is heavy and salty on her tongue, stretching her lips around him, cupping the back of her head as he fucks in deep.

"Grab your tits," he pants. "Fuckin' milk yourself, bitch. You milk yourself and-"

"You milk us." Rick again, taking her back for a few shallower thrusts, returning her to Daryl, and all she can do is what they say, closing her hands around her swollen breasts and kneading. Milking. She doesn't know if anything is actually going to happen, not like it did, but it doesn't matter; she holds herself like that and tears trickle down her cheeks and stop up her nose, and she's choking and drooling runners of spit as they pass her back and forth and pull her hair, slap her, hurl her into a blurry chaos where the only thing left to her is to be moved and used however they want her. She'd fall, hands on her breasts - her _tits_ \- like this but they hold her up and fuck her mouth and laugh.

Not _at_ her. Not mocking, not mean-spirited. It's never that. Their laughter is soft and delighted. Pleased. Pleasure-soaked, dropping away into groans.

" _Fuck,_ yeah, take it." She has no idea who's speaking anymore. Either of them. Probably both. A low roar of voices, rough, hammering into her ears. "Been waitin' for this? Been missin' it, you dirty little cunt? Knew we were savin' it up, you _slut,_ just wait till we can fuck you. You ain't gonna walk for _days_."

Those rough voices tightening and tightening, the pistoning movements of their hips starting to go ragged and uneven, and she knows it's almost over - and her face is a slick mess of tears and spit and precome and her jaw is one giant cramp and her throat feels raw, and she doesn't _want_ it to be over. She can take it, she wants to _keep_ taking it, because this particular part of the evening began with her basically incapacitated by cold fucking _nipples,_ and now she's taking this and she's keeping pace with it like she never stopped. Like nothing that changed _her_ could change _it._

But it's almost over and she half expects Rick or Daryl or both of them to wrench her head back and unload hot and thick all over her face and cradled tits - but no, they aren't going to do that either, and Daryl is snarling and gripping the sides of her head, ramming in so deep her lips almost brush the coarse curls of his pubic hair.

Another hand in her hair, holding her in place. As if Daryl needed backup. "Good girl. Drink him." And she is, she will, his shaft pulsing on her tongue and then a salty rush down the back of it and into her throat, and she makes herself relax, makes herself receive it with tears streaming down her face. "We drank you all up, now it's your turn."

Yes, that's fair.

She's coughing when he pulls out, somehow still gripping her breasts, teetering again, but Rick has her and plunges in, hissing her name as he releases, hissing _take it, little girl, drink it all, shit, oh, you BITCH-_

They always let her go suddenly. They do now and she drops her hands to her sides and rocks back, catches herself with the mostly forgotten robe falling over her. She curls her legs sideways and coughs strands of spit and come from her lips to the rug, tears blinding her, her fingers sticky with her milk, insides of her thighs sticky with her cream.

They took care of her and then they _fucked her all up,_ and if she wasn't coughing she would be laughing with something very close to glee.

They always let her go suddenly, watch her fall, but they always follow her down, and there's a big warm body crouching over hers, lifting her, combing her hair back and wiping at her eyes and cheeks and chin with what she guesses is a discarded shirt. Those hands on her, a little less rough, a little less like paws - Rick, gathering her into his arms and holding her. She sags, the coughing fit abating, tucking her face against his chest but allowing her head to be lifted away and the rim of a cup pressed to her lips.

Water. She manages not to gulp at it, coughs, sags again, and Daryl is at her back and she's held between them, wrapped up and safe, everything gone gentle.

"Fuckin' _hell,_ " Daryl murmurs into her ear, and he's shaking with silent laughter, and she smiles.

Hands on her breasts - very careful now. Examining more than anything. Rick's hands again. "Y'alright?"

She nods, almost sleepily. _Very._ She's sore, sore everywhere, but it's good, it's _perfect,_ all the other attendant aches and pains that haven't yet left her seem like they don't exist anymore and maybe never did. There's only the soft peace settling into her core, and she's been up and down a lot at night lately but she thinks tonight she'll sleep well.

"You're incredible," Rick breathes, presses his lips to the crown of her head, and she feels the twitch of his grin and hears a quiet, sighing _mmm_ as one of them kisses the other.

She wants to get off the floor. Eventually. Eventually that'll be nice. For now she's just being held, tired and aching and happy, and when she lifts her fingers to her mouth and cautiously licks at her knuckles she can still taste herself.

That wonderful sweetness.

She _is_ incredible. This frequently traitorous, frequently bizarre changing body, alternately so weak it infuriates her and stronger than she imagined she could be - with it she can make life and carry it and bring it into the world, and then she can make what she needs to feed that life everything _it_ needs. And that's so basic, and it's remarkable.

And it really tastes pretty decent.

And the occasional pain is worth it. Especially if she has big, rough, warm hands to make it better for her.

She's drifting back and forth between drowsing and mulling over these things when a sharp, determined wail cuts through the air and they all jump - and all sigh just about in unison. In the same unison they're all moving - even her, though part of her knows that's stupid and she should rest now - but Rick simultaneously pulls away and lays her back into Daryl's arms, depositing a kiss on her forehead before he straightens up and fumbles around for clothes.

"I'll go. It's my turn."

She isn't going to argue. Apparently Daryl isn't either. She hears Rick leaving, moving down the hall, and abruptly she's being scooped up and carried, set down on the bed. She draws her knees up and tries to shrug off the robe; it's taken from her and pulled free, and before she can see to her panties they're being tugged down her thighs.

Sometimes these days she isn't so fond of being naked. Right now it feels glorious, and she half-slides, half-rolls under the covers, curling up. It's warm and it's warmer when Daryl slides in behind her, pulls her back against him, and does what he always loves to do and buries his face in her hair.

She doesn't know that either of them intend for his hands to settle over her breasts, but they do. And it's so good.

"Anythin' you need," he whispers, a little muffled. "Anythin'. You just say it."

She nods, snuggling into his arms. _This is perfect._ But she doesn't think she needs to say it. He knows. Because it's possible that he can read her mind, or something close to it. Or when you love someone like this, you just know.

She's strong. He'll never let her forget it. Neither of them will.

Stronger, now.


	10. the easy part is taking yourself in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been exclusively Daryl and Beth's thing - until now. Rick's been waiting, been patient, and finally Daddy gets some quality time with his little girl. 
> 
> His _bad_ little girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hello it's me again with your favorite fetish
> 
> or not
> 
> Okay, time-wise this is another jump backward - they're settling into an actual poly relationship, but it's a ways before they decide to have a kid. Sort of midstream, if you will. No deep character work whatsoever. Just fucking. 
> 
> The daddy kink swings over into explicit incest roleplay. I doubt you'll have a problem with that, if you're here for the daddy kink, but I'm just saying.
> 
> Enjoy. <3

He knows they've done it. Do it. It's just never been something he's been part of.

Not for lack of wanting to. It's just that there's a whole list of things they haven't yet gotten around to doing together. There's a lot. And they keep getting distracted. 

Falling into this, taking his place - not so difficult. It was like a place was already there for him, waiting for him to come and occupy it. No one had to make room for him, not really. No major adjustments had to be made. Sleeping arrangements were and continue to be somewhat interesting, and Daryl has started making noises about getting a king size bed somehow from somewhere - or _making_ one, fuck it - because all the hopping around feels stupid at this point when they would all probably be happier not having to hop at all. 

And that's true. They'll get around to it. But there are other things. 

Such as. 

He's heard it. Knows the basics. It's not even that it was that weird; sure as hell wasn't disturbing, because Rick Grimes frankly isn't sure what could truly disturb him in this respect anymore, so long as everyone involved wants to be so. Lying in bed, listening to Beth's muffled moans, trying to keep herself quiet and failing because Daryl is doing something to her that reaches into her and _yanks_ out her voice: _Daddy, I'm sorry, I'll be good. I promise, I'll be a good girl, Daddy,_ please. 

Rick knew very early on that he likes it. That _please._

He also likes _Daddy,_ and he's not especially interested in teasing out the reasons why. She's pretty - _beautiful_ is more the size of it but as far as _pretty_ goes a lot of people would call her that. She still looks very young; the scars and what she's been through age her but not very much. On her knees with her eyes wide and her mouth open for his come, he's under no illusions about what he's seeing. Or what someone looking at this now might see. Would have horrified him once. Freaked him out, and off the charts. He knew this girl when she was practically a child, or it felt that way. An innocence about her even with the world falling apart around her. A sweetness. When he does what he does to her, he's attacking that innocence - he knows that much. He's gripping that sweetness by the back of the neck and giving its sweet little face rugburn from the carpet while he calls it a dirty slut and fucks it raw.

Somehow he always manages to be crueler to her, and he suspects the sweetness may be part of why. 

But he loves her. He does, so much. It goes that far and it's okay, because he knows it is, because Daryl has prepared this ground and if Daryl trusts it, he does as well. Trusts her. 

Trusts her to say no.

And loves her. God, _loves_ her. Finally gets it. He doesn't understand a lot of things about himself now, and one of those things is exactly how much and how deeply he loves her. He knows it's a lot. He knows it's deep. He thinks about her really getting _hurt,_ about someone hurting her, and a red haze descends and he knows what he could do.

But the truth is that he's fucked up in a way Daryl isn't. He feels things he knows Daryl doesn't. So is this something he needs to worry about? Her calling him that? _Being_ that? That he'd like it? Maybe a lot? 

Does he need to worry about the fact that he's not worried? 

Once or twice he's considered demanding it. Gripping her jaw and hissing it at her, ordering her to call him that, saying that she's a filthy little girl and she needs to be punished. But somehow that's never felt right. It can't be that contrived. Forced. It has to just come. 

There are things into which he trusts he'll be led when both of them feel like they're ready. Yeah, significant parts of his mind are quite simply Not Okay anymore, but enough of him is still here. Enough of him to be with them. Enough of him to know that he can't fuck this up, because in some ways it's at the heart of everything he has. 

His brother. His little girl. 

So he comes home one day and there they are. 

There it is. 

~ 

It's late. Very. The rest of the Zone is in bed. But from the street he saw the light on in his bedroom and he's already shrugging off his coat when he closes the door behind him in near silence, loosening his belt as he begins to climb the stairs. His blood doesn't race but it ramps up into a thicker pound, something almost mechanical in the sense of power rather than coldness, in the sense of the generation of heat. He imagines it prickling his skin from the inside out and he's half hard and sporting one quarter of a grin when he pushes open the door, and he's hardly surprised when she's there on her knees dressed in a schoolgirl-plaid skirt and white button-down blouse, her hair falling in golden waves over her shoulders except where Daryl is gripping it, strands wrapped around his ruthless fingers, simultaneously holding her down and dragging her neck into an arch that has to be painful. 

She _is_ in pain. In the frozen wince on her face, tears standing out in her eyes, her hands lax at her sides. Her lips are swollen and wet and flushed, and a red patch stands out stark against pale on her left cheek. She's been slapped. She's been warmed up. 

Good. 

Daryl, looming over her. Nearly smiling - more with his eyes than with anything else. Something almost proud flickering in there, like little tongues of flame. He's showing this off, showing _her_ off. What she can do. 

She looks at Rick and her own eyes widen - as if she didn't know this was coming. As if she didn't probably take point in the planning of this particular present. It's all he can do to keep from stretching that quarter grin into four full ones, and all he can do to keep from busting through his damn fly. 

He shouldn't grin. The other thing, there'll be time for. 

His gaze shifts back to Daryl's, even as she whimpers, "Daddy." 

"What's goin' on?" Calm. Casual, like he's asking Daryl about any part of the day. And Daryl huffs something that might be a laugh and jerks at her hair, pulls her head even higher and drags a sharper whine out of her, sends her fumbling mindlessly for his hand. 

"Tell him." 

"They sent me home, Daddy." Every word trembling along with her breath. Her legs are spread wider, her skirt rucked up on her thighs, and he catches a glimpse of white cotton. 

There's an attention to detail here that he deeply appreciates. 

He's starting across the room. Slow, deliberate. He's conscious of his shadow moving against the wall, cast by the low lights at the sides of the bed. "Tell me why, honey." 

She bites at her lip, her hands loosening again. "Please... don't punish me." 

"Depends. You tell me, maybe I won't." On the last two words he reaches her and stares down at her - she's like he often wants to see her, trapped between them and kneeling, nowhere to escape to, shadows pressing down on her like hands. He glances up at Daryl and sees only that fire, reaches down and grips her jaw. "Looks like he already gave you some. Maybe that'll be enough. What'd you do, little girl?" 

His fingers are deforming her cheeks, puffing out her lips, and when she speaks the sounds are deformed as well. But he can understand her just fine. 

"Was playin' with myself." 

Affecting surprise. Anger. He tightens his hand and gives her face a shake, gets another whimper for it, and his cock is practically groaning with desperation. One thing he's has to learn is patience. "Jesus, girl, you better not mean what I think you mean. _What_ were you playin' with?"

"Daddy-" 

Daryl wrenches at her hair and she bites back a cry. Maybe they'll have to gag her - those white cotton panties, multipurpose here. He wonders how soaked they are already. Wonderful, he'll get to be outraged about that too, and then stuff it into her mouth. 

"Tell him, you little slut. Fuckin' say it." 

"My-my pussy, Daddy." She almost sobs the last word, her hands clutching the hem of her skirt and twisting at it. Twisting it in just the right way to pull it further up. "I was playin' with my pussy, they caught me-" 

"What the _fuck,_ girl." He doesn't release her so much as shove her face to the side, eyes narrow. Blood screaming through him, packing into his capillaries, filling them like balloons. He's so hard he's honestly not sure how much longer he can take it, except the longer he makes her wait the better it'll be for all three of them. But Christ, he's going to be so _mean_ to her, and he hasn't missed the sparkle behind the pain and the anxiety darkening her eyes. All mischief back there. All wicked fun. 

Yeah, this whole thing was almost certainly her idea.

"Said she was a slut, right?" Daryl's free hand slides down her cheek and cups her face, almost gentle - and forces two fingers roughly between her lips, holding her that way. He's not wasting any time; he's already fucking her mouth with them, stretching her lips until a thin runner of spit trickles down to the side of her chin. "You're lovin' this, aren't you, baby? Yeah, you know you are. There you go." Almost cooing - with knife edges. "Slut. You wanna act like one-" 

"You're gonna get treated like one." He does grin, then. He sees no point in keeping it back now. He grins and looks down at her and thinks for another fraction of a second about how this would appear from across the room. How this would look to anyone else. How fucked up it would seem. 

Is, kind of.

He and Daryl learned a while ago how to coordinate without speaking, how to move in fucking almost like fighting - a smooth unit, if they know when the other is at all times. So Daryl slips his fingers free of her mouth and her hair at the same moment Rick clenches it into a fist and yanks her forward, pushes her face against his crotch with his hand cupping the back of her head. 

"You want that, slutty baby? You want that in your pussy?" He jerks her head away and her face is already shining with tears and spit, and she blinks up at him, flushed. Panting. Begging for it with her eyes. 

"I want it so much, Daddy." She swallows. "That's why I was... I was thinkin' about it, I couldn't stop-" 

"Thinkin' about your own Daddy? Like that? Fuckin' hell, you _filthy girl_. You got any idea how _bad_ that is?" 

Making what's been implicit into something very explicit. He sees her mostly bare thighs, sees her pressing them tight together, and _fuck,_ how wet she has to be. He's sliding so easily into this, as easily as he imagined he would, and he thinks he can make some very good guesses as to what she wants. 

She nods - or tries. "I know, Daddy, I'm sorry." 

Daryl has stepped back, arms folded, watching with shadowed eyes. He's tenting his own pants, has to be aching all the way to the root, but of course he's waiting too. Simmering that low. He knows the payoff. And he's clearly pleased, very, and he chuckles. 

"You're a dirty slut, girl. Wantin' that. Say it." He judges her ass with the toe of his boot. "Say you're a dirty slut." 

She drags in a shuddering breath, gulps. "I'm... I'm a..." 

"Can do it but you can't say it?" But Rick is softening a bit, combing his fingers through her hair. Softening with her, because it just means it'll be that much sweeter when he crashes down on her again. "C'mon, honey. I know you can. Tell you what." He tips her head further back, feeling his lips curl. It's a _deep_ smile, the kind he can't hope to fake. The kind she can always draw out of him. "You say it, maybe I'll give you what you want. Huh?" 

She manages a slight nod, another gulp. "Yes, Daddy." 

"My cock in your tight little hole? You like that?" 

She wriggles, twisting at her skirt again. Pulling it higher. He'd swear he can see a wet sheen on the insides of her thighs. "Daddy, _please_." 

"Say it, then."

"I'm a dirty slut," she whispers, and when Rick meets Daryl's gaze he sees his own exasperation reflected. This role is eating him. It's not just for her. Not that it ever was. 

"Can't hear you, honey." 

"I'm a dirty slut!" 

Louder, plenty loud enough, and he laughs, shakes his head, drags her in again and grinds her face against him. There's pressure, the heat of her frantic breath, her struggling, and his head drops briefly between his shoulders - and some kind of boundary is breached and it's just him and her. No one else. This room a shard of the universe they've carved off for each other, that no one can enter and no one can disturb. 

Except there's Daryl. Daryl, palming himself and kneading slowly. Possibly a conscious decision, but also very possibly he just couldn't hold off any longer.

Its own kind of delightful. Daryl is mostly peripheral here, and fading further into the background every minute - which he's obviously intending - but there's still that thread of power running between them, always humming, always taut. And if he's removed even a small portion of Daryl's control... 

Kept him in his place. For now. 

He hauls her back, and this time he shoves her down, almost throws her to the floor; she tumbles, suddenly unbalanced, and sprawls to the side with her legs spread wide. Cotton panties marked by a spreading wet spot, and he wasn't wrong about the sheen near the creases of her thighs. His tongue moves in his mouth, thick and swollen like the rest of him as he goes to work on his fly. 

She's wearing knee socks. Black patent leather Mary Janes. They took care of _everything_. 

God, he really does love them. And they're so good to him. 

More than he deserves. 

"Play with your pussy now, baby. Get your fingers in there. Lemme see how wet you are." 

Her hand is already drifting southward, and she sighs as her fingers nose under the elastic of one leg, stretch it to the side to reveal her gleaming cunt, her dark lips, her clit standing out so swollen he can just about _feel_ its throb. Her head falls between her shoulders and she moans as she circles it, presses, rolls her fingertips from side to side before she roams down and pushes a single finger into herself with a quiet squelch. 

"That's good, little girl. Just like that." He toes off his boots and steps out of his pants, pulls his shirt over his head, kicks the whole mess away and stands over her in only his shorts - and it's taking everything he has to keep his hand off his own cock. Every cell in his body is shrieking for her, for this, this beautiful ruined innocence, this joyful depravity he would never have expected of either of them before this place. 

Before the world blew apart. 

"Look at me, baby." 

She raises her head, her finger still moving, and locks her focus onto the fabric stretched over and around him, her pretty doe eyes going huge and round. 

"Daddy-" 

"Know you want it, dirty girl." Concession to himself: he cups his cock, his balls, squeezes very slightly and hisses. Behind her, Daryl is working his pants open, gathering shadows around himself. Rapt. He just wants to watch, Rick understands. He's been part of this every time; now he wants to be that person who sees this from the outside. Sees how fucked up it is. 

Sees and loves it. 

"I want it, Daddy," Beth moans. She's already pushing herself up though she hasn't missed a beat of the rhythm she's made, finger thrusting slow and steady into her cunt. "I know it's wrong, I shouldn't... God, I want your big cock, _please.._."

"Come and get it, sweetheart." 

She falls on him. She's ravenous. Her fingers still sticky with her own juices, hooking at the waistband of his shorts and pulling clumsily at them, pulling until his cock bobs free, and she freezes, lips parted and her pink tongue sweeping across them. 

She's not the only one who's wet. He's glistening, already so slick for her, beading precome at the tip, and she stares at it like it's the most amazing thing she's ever seen.

"Can I taste it, Daddy?" 

"Oh, my sweet little girl." He bites back a moan. "Course you can." 

Now she's all hesitancy. Not anxious but curious, uncertain, and she wraps her hand awkwardly around the base like she's never touched him before, never touched _anyone,_ and her tongue flicks out again as she leans in to catch the clear bead at his slit, licking it up in a single cat-like lap. 

_Fucking hell._ He searches for Daryl again, finds in him the dimness; cock in his hand, stroking himself slowly - grinning. Like he rarely sees Daryl grin. 

_Did good, didn't I?_

Except they both know better. It's a conceit that Daryl trained her, prepared her for this, when in fact Rick is perfectly aware of the fact that it was basically the other way around. 

But it's fun this way. He groans softly and returns his attention to Beth, who is licking him like he's coated in sugar, her eyes closed and her free hand once more working between her legs. 

"That's my good girl." He groans again, breathes a laugh. Nothing has ever been _fun_ in quite this way before, and somehow these warm, wet little sweeps of her tongue are like nothing he's ever felt. "My slutty girl... Yeah, get your mouth on me. Like this." He cups the back of her head again, curls a hand around his shaft. "Open wide, baby. Take your daddy's cock." 

She releases a whimpering sigh - a happy sound, almost relieved - and her lips stretch so fucking _perfectly_ around him as he slides into her mouth. 

This, too. Different. His groan is ragged, shuddering; she was before but she's so _warm,_ so _wet,_ her tongue moving against his underside as if she's still trying to lick at him. He frames her head with both hands and breathes, breathes and simply rests inside her, half aware of Daryl's own echo of a groan, his _oh, fuck, yeah._

"Can you relax for me, baby?" He strokes damp strands of hair away from her face as she gazes up at him, expression all helpless innocence with her lips wrapped around his dick. "Just relax. I'm gonna fuck your mouth, little girl, you ready?" 

Not that he cares.

She lets out a hard _mmm_ sound and he's already bottoming out against the back of her throat, holding her in place as she twitches violently and gags, gropes at him. He can be merciful, at least some; he shallows it, but he's fucking her in short, hard thrusts, biting his lip to keep back his louder moans as tears squeeze from the corners of her eyes and run down her cheeks. 

"Christ, you little whore." He can't take his eyes off her; all tousled, already such a mess, she's glorious. She's a fucking angel. "Look at you. Your own daddy's cock in your slut mouth and you _love_ it, you dirty little bitch, how the fuck did you get to _be_ like this?" She gags again, a frantic edge to it and to the way she's fumbling at his thighs, and he yanks her head away, cock coming free with a wet pop. She lapses into a fit of coughing, head lowered and runners of thick spit dangling from her lips as she shivers.

He stands, panting, gripping her. Looking at her. He was close. Didn't realize it until it was almost too late; finishing on her face right now just doesn't feel like enough. She deserves more than that.

"It's okay," he breathes. "I love you, baby. Pretty baby, you're all mine. That was so good." He's stroking her again, falling back into something gentle as her coughing subsides. "You hear me? You're still my good girl." 

She raises her head and gives him a weak, shaky smile. "I made you feel good, Daddy?" 

"So good, honey." He swipes his thumb across her cheek, erasing the tracks of her tears. "Can't tell anyone about this, alright? You want it, you can't tell anyone." His attention lifts for a moment, back to Daryl and the soft, slick sound of the passage of his hand over his shaft, and it flashes through his mind: Daryl is apart from this, might as well not be here anymore, but he _is,_ and how he might be... 

Ways of introducing whole new dimensions of twisted into this.

_Brother._

_Rick,_ Daryl mouths, and Rick fights back his own shiver. Not yet. Not... 

Maybe. Right now his baby girl needs him. 

"I won't, Daddy." 

"Just for us, baby."

"Yeah." A long, shuddering breath escapes her and she wipes at her mouth, those big doe eyes gazing up at him. _Into_ him. She sees everything. "Daddy... My pussy, Daddy, I need it." 

He allows himself a smile. Small. Just enough to register pleased amusement, because that's exactly what he's feeling as he steps out of his shorts and takes his cock in his hand. "Need what?" 

"My fingers aren't enough, Daddy." She whimpers, her hand moving under the white cotton, and she leans back on her other - might be a simple change in position, but no: like a good slut, like someone who's worked to _earn_ the title, she's displaying herself to him. "I want _you,_ please, I want you to fill me all up..." 

"Your pussy's so tight, sweetheart. You think you can take me?" 

"I can." Her eyes roll up behind her fluttering lids as she pushes back into herself, and he can tell without seeing that she's crooking her fingers, searching for that spot at the top of her wall. "I know I can, Daddy, let me try... Oh, _God,_ I need you so bad..."

"Get up here, then." He doesn't wait; he bends, seizes her wrist, puts her on her feet with a single rough jerk that gets him another one of those lovely choked cries, and shoves her toward the bed. "Get on it, hands and knees. Get that pretty ass in the air." 

She's a chaos of limbs as she stumbles forward, patent leather flashing and one knee sock loose around her ankle, her hair a complete tangle, and when she reaches the bed it's more of a collision, scrambling awkwardly up onto it and dropping forward. He's taking his time as he follows her, still fisting himself, surveying her - she _is_ pretty. She's so pretty. She's so beautiful, always beautiful, and now as this particular kind of wreck she's beautiful in a whole new way, because she never runs out of ways. 

This is fucked up and it's okay. 

"Oh, my girl," he murmurs. All at once she's there, creamy-pale ass lifted toward him, and he can _smell_ her: her sweat, the juices streaking her inner thighs, her thick arousal, the sheer _heat_ with which she wants this. Heat radiating from her skin when he touches her, glides his hand over one cheek to the back of her thigh, and feels her quiver. "You wanna come?"

She sobs, wordless; he can see one hand clenched in her hair. Like his, like Daryl's and he knows she's seeking more of the pain. 

"I wanna see it. I wanna see you make yourself come. Show me." He curls his fingers under the waistband of her panties and gives them a sharp pull until they're halfway down her thighs, hears fabric tear. "Make yourself all wet for me, girl. You're gonna need it." 

She makes a muffled sound that he takes for acknowledgement, maneuvers her arm under and back and lifts her searching fingers, finds her pussy with a sigh. 

"Spread yourself. Lemme see what I'm gonna fuck." 

Another muffled sound - a needy moan. She scissors her fingers into a V, spreads her sopping lips wide, and a groan traps itself in his throat at the glistening pink, the winking little hole nestled there. "Baby girl, that's so pretty. C'mon." Light slap on her ass; she squeaks. "Play with your pussy. Just like you did. Slutty baby, show Daddy what you did." 

"Daddy," she whimpers, pushing one finger in, withdrawing it slick and shining and transferring it to her clit. "Oh, Daddy, I couldn't help it..."

"I know, honey."

"I'm..." She actually lets out a breathless laugh; he decides against giving her a harder smack. "I'm such a slut, Daddy, just for you." 

"Just for me, baby. You gonna come?" 

"I... I am, Daddy, I'm gonna..." Already arching, muscles shaking; she's been on the edge for who knows how fucking long and all she needs is a nudge. "Daddy, I'm gonna come so hard, I'm gonna... Oh my _God,_ oh _Daddy, Daddyyy_ -" 

Her fingers moving in stuttering, desperate circles, ass humping, her cream running down her knuckles as she bites at the covers and forces her cry into the mattress - and he grabs her wrist again and jerks her hand free, and her knees crumple under her as he yanks her panties down her legs and crumples them into his hand. 

She's pushing up, still rolling with aftershocks, trying to see him with her face a mask of confusion. "Daddy, what-" 

"Shut up." He bends forward, knee on the bed, holds her by the back of the neck and jams the balled-up panties against her lips. "Open your mouth, little girl. 'cause I'm gonna make you scream." 

Her mouth drops open, and as he stuffs her panties in he's sure the shock in her eyes is at least half genuine, and that's fine.

Very. 

"Get back up. Scoot forward. Hands and knees, bitch, c'mon." He lands a smack on the side of her thigh, hard enough to make his palm sting, and she yelps. "You want Daddy to fuck you? Daddy's gonna fuck you. 'cause you asked for it." 

Pushing himself up behind her, dick in his hand, just for a moment everything stops again and he _sees_ her, her heaving shoulders and the side of her face still flushed from where Daryl hit her, wet with fresh tears, lips swollen around her own panties, her plaid schoolgirl skirt fallen down her back and her ass so delightfully red, pussy dripping and ready for him, and those fucking _knee socks,_ those fucking _Mary Janes,_ and he's fallen so deep into this he never wants to find his way out. 

"Here you go, baby," he hisses, takes her by the hip, leans over her. With her head up this far, he can almost bite her ear. "Sweet baby girl, everything you wanted." 

He's in her so hard and so deep she nearly screams.

So already the panties were a good idea. 

He doesn't build it up. He just pounds into her, circles an arm under her and fumbles for the front of her blouse, gives it one sharp jerk and feels buttons fly everywhere, and then her little tit in his palm. Cotton bra to match the panties. Like a good girl. He laughs and bites at her shoulder, finds her peaked nipple through the fabric and pinches, laughs again when she whines. 

"Ah, yeah, baby. Shit, you _filthy_ girl, you come-slut, you want it? You want this? You know you do, you fuckin' love it, takin' your daddy's cock in your sloppy pussy, you're so _bad..._ " He's barely even thinking about it anymore - it's all just a mindless string of obscenities as his thighs piston, as he slams into her and she sobs and shudders under him, helpless, hands clenched tight in the sheets. 

Not long. He'll be disappointed some other time. Now he's almost snarling, biting at his lips to keep at least _sort of_ on the quiet side, but losing himself in it, in how fucking _amazing_ it feels, how she's not tight and she never really is if they do their jobs right, but she _feels_ tight, his little girl, and he twists cruelly at her nipple and drags her against him as she keens-

Daryl. There, naked and dark and kneeling in front of them with his hand wrapped around his shaft, lowering one hand to the back of Beth's head. Meeting his eyes and smiling like only Daryl smiles at him, so much there that Rick doesn't think he'll ever fully understand.

Like all of this. Like them. 

Once again they're coordinating without speaking, just _knowing_ what should be done, and he pulls out fast and grips Beth by the hips, flips her bodily over and slides up her body, jerking at his cock and grazing the tip against her chin, leaving shining smears.

Those panties. That won't do. 

Daryl pulls them free. 

She hiccups, gasps, blinks up at them with a faintly stunned look in her eyes, but this much is very familiar to her: them over her, cocks in their rough hands, and Daryl palms the back of Rick's neck and tugs him in, foreheads almost touching. 

"Come, Rick." Words carried out on a hard exhale, barely audible. But there. "Come all over her. Come all over your little girl." 

He does. 

All at once every muscle is tensing and exploding at once into an incandescence of pleasure and he's gripping Daryl's shoulder, groaning what might be words and are probably nothing of the kind, and spurting across her chin, her neck, high on her tits, watching through a fog as Daryl adds his own, thick over her cheeks and into her waiting mouth. 

_All over your little girl._

Yes.  

Then hunched, panting, seeing things only in flashes. Feeling them. Beth's hands somehow cool on his thighs. Daryl's mouth, lips soft and tongue hungry against his. Then bed, yielding and blessedly horizontal, and it's finished and together they're making the gradual journey back down. All three of them are sprawled all over each other, and Beth is the only one at all dressed. 

Which seems really ridiculously funny, so they laugh about it, laugh as someone locates her panties to wipe her face with. 

Though - like he almost always does - Daryl will do most of that work himself, and Rick turns onto his side, still dazed, and watches as Daryl settles next to her and leans in and begins to clean her with his tongue. 

This ritual predates him. It's one of the things in which he doesn't imagine he'll ever share, and that's all right. Some things should be just for the two of them, no matter how at home he manages to feel with them - which he does and he will, he thinks, no matter how fucked up he is. 

But this... Well, this is his now too. 

Finally stripped out of her clothes and clearly much more comfortable, she rolls over to him and into his arms, curling all warm and loose against him with a happy sigh. And he strokes the tangles out of her hair and presses his curved lips against her brow, her head a gold blur in the lamplight. 

_Baby. Oh, my little girl._

_My girl, I love you._


	11. recollect me darling, raise me to your lips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I actually thought I might be done with both of these kinks. Rick had other ideas. 
> 
> By the way, no, I'm pretty sure I'm not done with Pacify in general. I've been doing other things, but I have ideas on the back burner, and I do mean to get to them eventually. Not sure when I'll return to the main plotline, but watch for it. 
> 
> In the meantime, if Brickyl lactation kink/daddy kink/rope bondage is your thing, please enjoy this offering. ❤️

The rope bites into her ribs and tits when Daryl lowers her onto Rick’s cock, and she throws her head back and whines between her clenched teeth.

Her tits are the worst part. Already swollen and aching before they grabbed her and bound her, now in the afternoon sunlight they're dark red against her pale skin when she dares to look down at them, wrapped and standing out from her chest like little balloons. Not so little, not anymore - which they absolutely adore - and as she watches, leaning back into Daryl’s hands on her shoulders in a useless attempt to take some of the pressure off her upper body, beads of milk gather at her nipples and hang delicately suspended.

She's overloaded. It's almost too much - and she's taken more, technically, but it's stretching her in more than one way. The awful bruising burn of the rope harness and the wrenching pain of her arms folded behind her, Rick’s cock impossibly deep in her pussy as her own weight presses her down onto him, the friction of the carpet against her knees as she shifts and tries to find her balance. Daryl’s heat at her back as he bends and grips the harness and uses it to raise her and drop her, fucking her up and down and never giving her a chance to adjust, and Rick naked and reclining on the floor beneath her, pushing up on his elbows and gazing at her with that familiar hungry rapture glittering in his eyes. Not moving. Letting Daryl do the work. Letting _her_ do the work, if she could catch her breath.

But of course they're not going to give her that chance.

“Shit, baby.” Rick’s filthy mouth. It's coming, he knows exactly how much she loves it and how little resistance she has, and she lolls her head and whimpers and manages to support herself for a few desperate seconds before Daryl is lifting her again and the rope squeezes her breasts so tight the whimper twists into a sob. “Little girl, look at that. Look at those tits. All ripe and sweet for me.” He lifts a hand and flicks one of her nipples with the pad of his thumb, and a warm ripple passes through her chest and belly. She's going to. He's going to _make_ it happen, whether she likes it or not.

Good thing she’s discovered she does.

Daryl is wordless behind her, an almost mechanical device forcing her into this place and confining her here for Rick’s benefit and convenience. He'll be like that until he's not, until it's his turn; she knows without having to be instructed and without anything having to explained, all the strength of his hands behind it, and looming over her like he is, there's a delicious thread of fear wound through this. Rick is the one fucking her, but Daryl seized her and bound her and for right now _he's_ the one hurting her, controlling how _much_ she hurts, and God knows what he’s in the mood to do.

She suspects he might be inclined to be especially mean.

Not that Rick isn't doing his part - pinching her nipple, twisting it, more milk dribbling down his knuckles and the back of his hand. His skin glistens. “ _Ah,_ baby girl, you're so fucking tasty.” He releases her, brings his fingers to his lips, sucks them clean with a quiet moan, and Beth feels a puff of silent laughter against the crown of her head. “Daddy loves it so much. Can you make some more? Can you be a good girl, do that for your Daddy?”

He reaches up again and she flinches involuntarily backward, her spine twinging, and then she yelps full-voice as Daryl gives the harness a cruel jerk and shoves her simultaneously forward to meet Rick’s hand. The one mercy is that she's being allowed to rest, straddling Rick’s hips, and that's not much of a mercy at all as he pinches her again and tugs.

“Gonna milk you now, little baby. Like a damn cow. You ready?” She’s not, never could be, feels like her tits could burst, and she shakes her head and moans pure despair as her tears blur the world away. There's a flex and she rocks herself back and forth as Rick twitches inside her, and when she comes to rest he's nudging her wall in a way that hopelessly confuses her overtaxed nerves. She's sopping wet already, her pubic hair soaked and soaking his, and that warm ripple is gathering for another pass.

Might be enough to kick her over this time.

“You can take it. C’mon, honey. Hold still for me. Daryl, push her down,” he adds, lying back on the pillow he placed beneath his head and gripping her tits with both hands, pressure at the edges and her nipples between his forefingers and thumbs, that steady pull. Daryl pushes with one firm hand between her shoulderblades - still holding the harness with the other - until she's leaning over Rick’s chest, and the sheer agony of the pressure makes her want to give up and cry.

Which they would love.

Not giving them that. Not quite yet.

“Baby, that's perfect,” Rick breathes, and she's not certain whether he's talking to her or Daryl, but then it doesn't matter because he's squeezing her in earnest, concentrated tight-loose ending with a tug at her teats in that motion she learned as soon as she was old enough to help out with the chores, and all at once it's _taking_ her, a warm flow in her core that breaks through and becomes literal as milk spills all over Rick's hands and runs down his wrists, drips onto his bare chest, and the look on his face…

She can hardly see him through the corresponding rush of fresh tears. But she knows what his face is doing. The amazement, every time.

The awe.

Without noticing, she began to rock her hips in time with Rick’s kneading and now she angles her pelvis sharply down and grinds her throbbing clit against his pubic bone, and when it takes her again she's rising to meet it, breaking their rule and doing it without permission and not giving a shit, flooding onto Rick’s cock the same instant she floods into his hands, and Daryl slaps a hand over her mouth and thrusts his fingers onto her tongue to muffle her scream.

“Oh, you bad girl.” Rick laughing, delighted. “You dirty little slut, you didn't _ask_. You are gonna _pay_ for that.” She catches his glance past her, an unspoken cue, and Daryl lets go of the harness so abruptly that she nearly pitches forward. His fingers are withdrawn at the same time and he moves past her, an indistinct shadow coming into focus as he sinks down onto the foot of the bed.

Facing her, his lips peeled back from his teeth in something like a snarl and his eyes searing into hers. Palming the bulge between his legs and kneading himself through his jeans like Rick was kneading her tits. Teasing himself. Preparing for her.

Rick can be awful. But there are some ways - deeper ways, ways she can't hope to articulate - in which Daryl is worse.

Then she's not thinking about that anymore. She's strangling a shriek as Rick smacks a hand across her tits and her vision explodes with piercing light.

“Shut the fuck up,” he says, almost casual as he tweaks her right nipple - somehow always the more sensitive of the two. “You shut up, or it's gonna be a lot worse. Get me, baby?” Another swift smack and she bites down on the insides of her cheeks, her head snapping back and her eyes wide and blind. It's hurt worse than this, but it's never hurt _like_ this, scorching into her skin, and as she always does when she can feel herself edging within sight of a particular line, she repeats her word in her head.

Knows she's safe.

But Rick doesn't hit her again. This time he's approaching gentle as he closes his hand over her, strokes the outer curve of her, ghosts his fingers across her abused flesh. She's sobbing quietly - giving in, praying it doesn't earn her another strike - but he only shushes her, pushes up on one hand and rocks her backward to give himself room to lean in.

“There you go. Alright, baby girl. You're okay.” Curve of his smile against the patch of exposed skin between her breasts. His lips are cool and it soothes her. “Daddy’s gonna fuck you. Fill you all up. You like that?”

She nods. Sniffles. Words were beyond her a while ago, lost somewhere between the roaring fire in her tits and the equally relentless fire in her cunt. Yes, she wants to be fucked. That's what she wanted the second this started. She wants to be fucked and drained and _used,_ hit, called a _slut_ and a _whore_ and a _dirty girl,_ punished by her men until she almost can't take it, until she breaks, and it feels so good to have returned to a place where they'll give it to her and she _can_ take it.

“That's my good girl.” Hand on her thigh, tight. The flash of his eyes in the sunlight as it spills across him like honey. “You're gonna move for me. Understand? You're gonna move so I can drink you. ‘cause sweetheart, nothing tastes as good as you do.”

Another nod, and of course yet again he doesn't give her a chance to center herself; he's pulling her in with a hand at the small of her back, making her bend into a bow, closing his lips over her nipple and tonguing her roughly as he sucks. It's immediate and it melts her from the core outward: the flow warmer and denser than before, milk gushing from her exposed nipple and into Rick’s mouth from the other, his low, intoxicated moan and a firmer pull as she manages to move herself the way he wants her.

 _Now_ she's overloaded, heaving, grunting as she undulates in awkward rolls and struggles to keep herself upright, the pain from the harness almost faded into the background as the pain in her straining muscles shoves into the center of her attention. Her thighs, her back, her twisted shoulders and arms, mingling and churning with the endless waves crashing into her core as Rick suckles her. Her clit swollen as her nipples and aching just as bad, needy, crying out for more than she's able to give it. The lips of her pussy feel so swollen, so fat, squashed between them with every beat of the rhythm she's made. She could come again, she wants to come, she wants it so _bad_ even through the pain and in fact _because_ of the pain, the edge slicing into her, and she grits her teeth and fucks herself with Rick’s cock and pushes her dripping tits into his face.

Daryl watching her dark-eyed, dick jutting up from his open fly and in his hand. Jerking himself slowly, foreskin pulled back and head gleaming with the precome welling from his slit, her mouth watering and drool trickling down her chin as she watches him right back. He's waiting.

He's showing her what’s waiting for _her_.

 _Oh, please._ She doesn't know who she's begging. It doesn't matter. Either will do, either of her Daddies. _Oh my God, please, Daddy, please let me come, please, I wanna come, I wanna. Please. Oh. Please let me, I'll be good, I'll be so good for you._

Rick sucks harder. Daryl stares at her. Licks his lips.

Shakes his head.

Her sob is broken and despairing, and louder when Rick digs his nails into the meat of her ass and her nipple pops free. “Faster, little girl.” He's heaving breath, ragged, so _close_. “Yeah, milk me, baby. Fuck it all outta me. You want it? You dirty bitch, here it comes, _fuck_.”

She doesn't know why it always feels so good. Isn't sure she should be able to feel a difference at all. But she does and _it_ does, so good when he comes inside her, hot pumps of it into her pussy and slippery between them, and as she wrestles back her own climax she's thinking _thank Christ_ they decided they weren't going to worry so much about it anymore.

The breath slams out of her when Rick shoves her off him and she tumbles sideways onto the floor.

She can't catch it; she's still gasping when he hooks his fingers into the harness and hauls her up and back onto her knees. She cries out and he hisses at her - _Shut_ up, _bitch_ \- and drags her further, staggering to her feet, pushing her forward toward the bed.

Toward Daryl.

He catches her when she stumbles and falls against him, holds her by the waist, and then they're both hoisting her into Daryl’s lap, bringing her to rest straddling him, her legs stretched so wide her hamstrings add their complaints to the chorus already wailing through her head. The hard line of his shaft pressing into her mound.

Her pussy and her tits feel like they've been pummeled. She’s not brave enough to look down at herself. She's honestly afraid of what she might see. Afraid the sight might make it hurt even worse.

“Take her, brother,” Rick breathes, hands still at her back, steadying her. “Fuck her. Make her pay.”

She didn't honestly think she was done with the punishments. She wasn't that foolish. So she's whimpering and scared when they lift her together but she's not at all surprised, not when they ease her down onto Daryl’s twitching cock - deceptively smooth - and not when Daryl grips her and pistons up into her.

It's clumsier than usual, uneven, and somehow that makes it more brutal. They're handling her like a fucking rag doll, Rick supporting her as Daryl bounces her up and down and fucks into her with cruel snaps of his hips, and she's more than wet and ready enough for it to be easy but still he feels big enough and hard enough to split her open, and she goes limp and _keens,_ her head falling helplessly back against Rick’s sternum. And it's like the first time, she realizes through the drunken haze of sensation: when Daryl took her on his lap, lifted her and held her and Rick plunged into her, fucked her until she was desperate and pleading, fucked this whole insanity into being.

“That's it, fuckin’ hell.” She blinks, focuses; Daryl hasn't taken his eyes off her, the polished steel-shine in them as ruthless as how he's moving her. “Take it, baby. Your Daddy loves you, loves your tight pussy, you pretty little slut. Take my cock. Take it _all_.”

She found out very early on what a deliciously bad influence Rick is.

Rick chuckles, leans in, licks her ear. “You learning your lesson? Gonna behave next time?” She releases another cascade of sobs and he matches her with his laughter. “‘s for your own good, sweet angel. Making you our good girl.”

Yes. Yes, she's so good. Her own laughter threatens to break into her weeping. She's the best.

She's _perfect_.

“Aw, your titties are still leaking, baby. C’mon. Give us a little more.” Teeth closing on her earlobe, and he clamps his hands over her tits and tugs. “Tell you what: you give us more and you can come.”

Can she? Jesus, she doesn't know if she can. Doesn't know if she can come. Doesn't know if she can do anything but simply be here and be fucked, Daryl’s cock like a jackhammer, but as Rick kneads her with both hands she feels it rising, and she sags backward and a rasping cry rips out of her throat as she pours herself out one more time, dripping onto her own belly, dark spots on Daryl’s shirt, and it's still flowing when Rick drops his hand between her legs and a few seconds of poorly aimed friction is all it takes. Once more she's a single hot, wet rush, her pounding pussy and her tits, her milk and her juices and Rick’s come running out of her onto Daryl’s balls, and then with a shout he's adding his own to it, pulsing thick into her and sealing his mouth over hers as he does.

The last thing she manages to see clearly, before she goes totally loose and drifts away into Rick’s arms, is Daryl sucking her milk off Rick’s shining fingers, her ears full of happy moans.

She can't tell which ones are her own.

~

Still sore, hours later, curled in bed with the covers wrapped around her. _Like a damn burrito,_ Daryl said, and that made her laugh, which rubbed her tits against the sheet and even with the softness of the worn fabric it flared the lingering ache. The idea of nursing makes her wince. But she will. She’ll suffer through it and she’ll be glad of it. Glad that she can take it and she knows.

But they'll give her the rest of the evening off. Maybe even pamper her a little.

_Spoil their baby girl._

She can hear them moving around downstairs. Clinking plates, voices, the baby fussing and quiet again. All very domestic. It tugs the corner of her mouth into a small smile as she turns into the last of the daylight, wide broken squares across the comforter and the lump of her body beneath it. The truth is that for a time, during the final weeks and immediately after, she was afraid this might go away. She was afraid they wouldn't want to anymore, not that they wouldn't desire her that way but that they might start treating her too delicately, might start thinking of her as fragile. She shouldn't have worried. They never would have made that mistake. They saw her for what she is and what she was doing for what it was. They knew that a whole new set of limits was being established and pushed.

They know perfectly well how strong she is.

So she lies there, and she relishes every twinge of pain, and after a while she's almost sleeping, until the mattress dips behind her and a warm, naked male body slides in and presses along her back. And she can identify the differences between them at barely a touch, but she suspends that for now, ignores whatever ID her senses are providing, because in fact she doesn't want to know which one of them it is. If it could be either, it might as well be both.

 _I love you, my sweet girl._  Murmur in her ear, rough edges - again, if she doesn't think about it, it could be either. _We love you so much._

This time, when he lightly pinches her nipple and she sucks in a hard breath, her smile is twice as wide.


	12. in these arms you're always welcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl and Beth have finally had just about all they can stand. It's time for some payback. And what Rick is going to discover is that he's been an unknowing teacher, with two very excellent students.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this and then it just KEPT ON FUCKING GOING and I genuinely think it's one of the single dirtiest things I have ever fucking written. I mean Jesus. 
> 
> Yeah, this is yet more daddy kink, and yeah, it does edge into incest play, some of it blatant and some of it not so much. Just be aware. I'm vastly uninterested in being told how sick I am. Trust me, I know. 
> 
> Trying to write a character who's usually dominant by default in such a submissive role was interesting and also something of a challenge. If you, uh, enjoy it, please do let me know.

Rick is barely through the door when Daryl pounces.

At first he doesn't even register who it is. What it is. His instincts are honed by the world, carved by its edges, and in the initial few seconds he's all fight-or-flight, struggling violently as his arm is twisted up behind his back and he’s slammed into the wall - picture rattles, a sea calm and placid under a pretty blue sky, and part of him wonders in a fractured kind of way if it might fall and break - but it's no good; the grip on him is a steel clamp and the twist in his muscles is vicious, and he bucks himself backward… but he's starting to get it.

He could probably have gotten free. But later, examining his many bruises and meditating on the lingering ache in his shoulder, what he’ll have to admit to himself is that if Daryl Dixon wanted to take him down, he would almost certainly be able to.

Now he's making a thing of it, but it's for the sake of play because that's what this is, he gets it now, and Daryl is pressing against him, pinning him, hissing hot breath in his ear.

“Don't even think about it.” Powerful body on his, jamming his hips forward, and damn if he isn't already getting hard - and he's not the only one, Daryl’s erection decidedly noticeable when he rolls himself in a slow wave. “Don't you fuckin’ move or I’ll make you sorry for it, you hear me?” Grin. Sharp teeth against the nape of his neck and a firm cock nudging his ass, and this is suddenly a _very_ interesting afternoon. “God, brother, I'll make you so damn sorry.”

“Make him sorry anyway, Daddy.”

He almost whips his head around.

Doesn't. Starts to, and Daryl rakes his other hand into his hair and shoves his face against the wall so hard his jaw clicks and he sees stars, winces. But that voice. Jesus, that _voice._ He's heard it before, versions of it, but this is unlike any of those other times. High, breathy, little-girl voice, but no shy reticence, no pretend innocence, and no mock horror or fear when awful demands are made of her or she's being forced to feel so good in such a dirty way. This little girl is all wicked glee, in the background but close, and he can hear her equally wicked smile even if he can't see.

Which is when he knows he's in for it, and in a way he honestly hasn’t ever been.

Daryl shifts, looks over his shoulder. “Think I should, baby? Think he deserves it?”

“Yeah. He does.” Soft laugh. Beth Greene is the only person he's ever met who is capable of being adorable in every way it's possible to be, and that laugh turns his knees to water. “He's been bad, Daddy. He's been so _mean_ to me.”

“Aw, shit, sweetheart.” Sharp jerk on his arm, his hair, and he actually yelps as Daryl drags him away from the wall and whirls him awkwardly around. He stumbles and a wave of entirely alien embarrassment sweeps through him; he's always in control, no matter what they're doing he's always in charge, and sure, they've adjusted that a bit now and then, but for the most part it hasn't changed. It's simply how things _work._

And now Daryl is driving him to his knees, and he's staring at a blond pigtailed vision in tight little pink shorts and a tight little white top spangled with glittering stars displaying her cute little tits, white tennis shoes, sliding a red popsicle past her pretty plump lips and looking him over with dancing eyes.

None of this is new. Yet it all is. Somehow she's surpassing his most wildly pornographic dreams, and really Daryl is probably doing him a favor, putting less space between him and the floor.

“Tell me what he did.” He gives Rick’s hair another pull, and tears sting at the corner of Rick’s eyes. “Princess, tell me how he was mean to you. If I’m gonna make him sorry for it, I need to know.”

Beth coolly slurps the popsicle, lips all red and shining-sticky; it would be so good to suck them, bite them, stretch them around his cock. But somehow he doubts he's going to get to do those things, and when she speaks, the indignant tone in her voice makes him sure of it.

“He called me names, Daddy.”

“Did you fuckin’ do that?” Daryl gives him a rough shake and he barely catches himself on his hands. “You call my princess names? What did he call you?”

“He said I was a _slut._ ” She sounds positively scandalized. The _gall_ of him. He wants to laugh and knows it would be such a bad idea. “He called me a slut and a whore, Daddy. He said I was dirty. I'm _not_ dirty.” She takes a step forward, nearly a stamp of her foot, and God, she's spectacular, and his cock is almost as uncomfortable as his scalp, it's straining so hard against his fly. “I'm a good girl.”

He yelps again when Daryl cuffs him across the back of the head - not hard, barely more than a light slap, but that's not the point. His hands are free, he could totally get out of this now if he wanted, but he's wanting to less and less every second it continues.

“You do that? You do that to my good girl? _Say it._ ”

He's beginning to hunch forward, but Daryl tightens his fist in his hair and hauls him upright, and he only just manages to stop himself groping at Daryl’s hands. “Alright. _Alright._ I did.”

“That's not all, Daddy.” Hand on her hip. Her red-stained tongue licks up the popsicle from stick to tip, slow and unbearably tantalizing. “He made me do stuff.”

“What kinda things?”

“He made me-” She stops, looks abruptly uneasy. Abruptly shy. A blush to match the red on her lips and tongue is darkening her cheeks. “He made me put his… his _thing_ in my mouth.”

“You gotta tell me, baby. What thing?” The grin Daryl is fighting back is unmistakable. “You know the words, I taught ‘em to you.”

She gulps, whispers. “He made me put his _cock_ in my mouth, Daddy. He made me suck on it till he shot his- his-”

“You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Low. Dangerous. A beat, and Daryl twists his head back, stares down with dark, blazing eyes, and when Rick whimpers and gives up and fumbles at Daryl’s wrist all he gets is a slap on the knuckles that sends needles of pain skittering up to his elbows. “Brother, I leave you with her and you do _that_ to her? You do that to my baby?” He doesn't wait for an answer; twitch of his arm and Rick is tumbling to the floor in a heap, from the hardwood to the carpet with friction burning his hands. “No one gets to do that but me. You hear?” Daryl’s boot in his ribs, prodding him over onto his ass. Looming, the muscles in his arms seeming twice as big, and his dick a thick bulge in his pants. “She sucks _my_ cock. She eats _my_ come. I don't give a shit who you are. Don't give a shit if you're family. You ain't got no right.”

Beth shakes her head vehemently. “No, he doesn't. He doesn't get to do that to my mouth. And he stuck it…” Wrestling for the words again. Rick swallows and stares up at Daryl, stares at his dick, tries to work saliva into his mouth, because he can guess he’ll be needing to use it before this is all done. “He stuck it in my… my _pussy,_ Daddy. He stuck it in there and he didn't even let me come.”

“You son of a bitch. I fuckin’ _trusted_ you.” Daryl’s voice is trembling with outrage. All three of them are excellent actors by now, when it comes to this. Know exactly how to work each other up. Know exactly how to get each other desperate, and Rick’s legs fall open and he rocks his pelvis upward, absently trying to grind against his zipper, and maybe, just maybe, delivering a bit of a message.

_Okay, so you got me where you want me. You want this? You can have it. You can have it any way you like._

Daryl nods behind him, at Beth. Mouth tight. He's in fine form, and the part of Rick that isn't scrambling to keep up is profoundly appreciative. “Apologize to her. You apologize, and you make me believe it. You make _her_ believe it.”

Rick exhales, moves his tongue in his mouth. It should be easy to say, but it's not going to be enough; he knows that perfectly well. It's not going to be anywhere _near_ enough, and his breath is coming faster, shallower, at all the possibilities here. All the ways they might get it out of him, and what he says and how he says it won't make one scrap of difference.

But hey. Worth a shot.

“I'm sorry,” he says hoarsely, cranes his head, manages to catch her eye. “I'm sorry I did that.”

Long silence. Beth regards him with narrowed eyes. Her popsicle is melting, dripping onto her fingers and from there onto the floor. Another time, another game, he would grab her by the nape of the neck and shove her head down, make her lick the floor clean before she cleaned off his dick. But this is not that time or that game, and Daryl’s eyes are like twin drills in the back of his head and his brain feels like jello.

If they actually want him to keep talking, he's not altogether positive that he’ll be able to oblige. Even two exquisitely simple words.

“You believe him, princess?”

Her face suddenly breaks into that wicked smile. Her teeth gleam, and if she's adorable, it's in a decidedly predatory fashion. She shakes her head. “Nope.”

“Fine.” Rick swings his gaze back around in time to see a mirror image of that smile on Daryl’s face - all the predator and none of the adorable, and a shiver walks its chilly fingers down his spine. “Then we just gotta make him.”

A delighted little giggle from behind him. Rick’s eyes flutter closed and he hauls in a breath; leaning back on his hands, his knees bent and legs spread and cock throbbing like someone’s kneed him in the balls, Daryl glowering down at him, and all he can do is wait to be issued his punishment. Well-deserved. She's not wrong. He couldn't be more guilty as charged. He's done all those things to her, all those things and more, and maybe he does owe her some recompense. These things spin dizzily around the interior of his skull, throwing themselves against it as if they're trying to bust out and explain themselves directly to him. This is insane, and it also makes complete sense. And it's only reasonable that they wouldn’t have come to him first. It's only fair that they're springing it on him without one hint of warning.

God knows he's done that to her too.

Any number of things could happen to him now. But he doesn't expect what actually does happen, which is that Daryl steps past him with an air of dismissiveness, as if he's worthy of attention but only so much. Head up, he sees when he opens his eyes, and gaze locked ahead of him, all his hungry focus on her. His _princess,_ his little girl, his pretty little fuck-toy who’s been so terribly slighted by such a nasty old man.

Rick hasn't been given permission to move, and on some level he's cognizant of that and of what it implies, but his instincts also aren't to wait for instruction, and before he knows it he's twisting at the waist and looking toward them in time to see Daryl settling on the sofa and pulling Beth back onto his lap, one hand casually parting her legs so she's essentially straddling him. Showing her off, her agonizingly tight shorts cutting into her crotch and her nipples peaked under the thin fabric of her shirt, where there's clearly no bra between them and it. Daryl is smiling lazily, and every element of this is calculated to drive Rick crazy.

He exhales, just short of a moan.

Daryl runs his fingertips up the inside of her creamy thigh, and she squirms and giggles again, sucking sugar off her fingers. “Whatcha wanna do with him, baby? How you wanna make him sorry?”

“Ummm.” Show of thoughtfulness as she sucks the last of the popsicle off the stick. Daryl is still gliding his hand up and down her thigh, tantalizingly close to her pussy before he stops and meanders back down to her knee. “I dunno, Daddy. We could do all kinds of things, couldn't we?”

“You wanna play with him? You want a new toy?” He reaches around her with his other hand and, in a way that could almost be accidental, grazes his fingers across her nipple. She shivers. “Been a while since I got you anything.”

She brightens, as if she considers this a marvelous idea. Naturally she does. “Yeah. Yeah, I wanna do that.” The stick is clean of sugar but she licks it anyway, her red tongue and lips and _fuck,_ he could spring to his feet and charge forward and play with _her_ until she's screaming for him to stop, and keep on going. “I bet he wouldn't like it if someone did the same stuff to him that he did to me.”

“Want me to do that to him, princess?” All at once Daryl’s fingers aren't so casual, and he seizes her nipple between his forefinger and thumb and twists. A sharp breathy _ohh_ escapes her, those red lips pulled into a moue. “Tit for tat?”

She nods, sighs. Wriggles in his lap, and Rick can imagine from extensive personal experience how that luscious ass feels moving over his cock, rubbing like an invitation for him to take her hips and fuck her right there. His throat is winching itself closed, and breathing is difficult.

He knows what's coming.

“Want me to fuck his mouth, sweet girl?” It rides out of Daryl’s chest on something very near a moan, and Rick finally sees how he's humping his hips up to meet her, grinding slowly. Tormenting himself. “You wanna watch that? You want me to fuck him for you? Want me to call him those names while I do it?”

Rick gasps. Can't help it, couldn't ever hope to stop it as electricity shoots from the top of his head all the way down to the root of his cock and spikes there, and his goddamn _toes_ tingle with it.

_Jesus fucking Christ._

Another sigh, strained now. Her head lolls back and the popsicle stick slips from between her fingers and drops onto the carpet. He's rolling her nipple back and forth, merciless like Rick knows he can be, as his other hand at last snakes between her legs and cups her. Kneads. Her clit will be throbbing as bad as his cock, almost at the point where the sheer need will drive her to begging. But for now she only wriggles harder, presses into his palm, lets out a soft _mmm._

“He's gonna make you come, too,” Daryl murmurs. His eyes are locked on Rick’s, pinning him to the floor, a moth staked onto a board. “He's gonna make you come so hard, little girl. He's gonna make that up to you.” Beth moans shakily, arches, and Daryl withdraws his hand and plucks at the buttons of her fly. Idle. He tips his chin at Rick. “Strip.”

He doesn't immediately get it. Or he does, but he can't connect the instruction to his muscles. He half crouches there, gaping at them like a fucking dumbass, as if Daryl might clarify. And Daryl does; his growl is deep and bestial, and once more edged with danger.

“You heard me, you sick piece of shit. Get your fuckin’ clothes off. Or I'll hold you down and cut ‘em off you, and I won't be careful.”

Rick pushes up onto his knees. It's a single movement, much clumsier than he's capable of; he's trembling everywhere, jittery with what he recognizes as a dog-like determination to please, and he thinks _this is what it feels like for him,_ and he thinks _holy shit why didn't we do this sooner._

Shirt first. He takes the hem and tugs it up his belly, over his head and tosses it away and takes care of his boots, and yeah, he's got enough of a handle on himself to not rush it, to give them both a little bit of a show, which has to be part of the ideal plan here. And he's mildly pleased with himself that he manages to hold Daryl’s gaze as he loosens his belt and undoes his fly - and Daryl is easing down Beth’s zipper along with him, maneuvering his fingers under her waistband. Rick catches a glimpse of pink cotton, soft pink covering soft pink, and Beth’s breath hitching as Daryl noses in further, because Rick knows his fingertips are teasing the smooth shaved skin just above her clit and it has to be gradually driving her out of her mind.

Normally he's selfish. He adores her, adores _him,_ but ultimately for the most part his attention is on himself, what he's making them do and how good they're making him feel, or the pleasure he's allowing them. And now he watches them there on the couch, barely more than a yard away from him, and he keeps forgetting himself. Lost in watching them together.

He's a full participant in this now. There is no third wheel on this vehicle. But now and then he's freshly cognizant of the fact that he was a latecomer, that they knew each other this way for a long time before he arrived, and even now they know each other in a way he might never completely match.

That's fine. That's more than fine.

His jeans. Fuck. He paused with them lowered by mere inches, and Daryl’s eyes are narrowing; not _that_ much of a tease, that is not allowed here, and Rick hooks his thumbs under his waistband and slides jeans and shorts together down his thighs, hissing when his cock _at long last_ springs free.

He's so hard it basically hurts. So hard he looks down and the tissue is dark with the blood swelling it, jutting up and glistening wet, bobbing as he breathes. He's almost afraid to touch it, afraid of what might happen - afraid, maybe, that he might come, which he's all but positive would elicit some additional punishment. There are rules to this game and they apply across the board, and no one gets to come without permission.

Except him.

So much for that.

He awkwardly kicks them away and kneels there naked, and the feeling of total exposure that burns under his skin is both awful and wonderful.

Beth’s breathing is coming in shallow pants, edged with moans as Daryl stimulates her into a simmer, her eyes half-lidded as she looks him over. Slow crawl of her gaze, Daryl along with her, and Rick bites back a whine.

Fuck, it's so unwise but he wants to touch himself so bad. Maybe if he's very good they’ll let him. He would let _them,_ wouldn't he?

Yeah, maybe not so much.

Daryl kisses the side of Beth’s throat. “What d’you think, baby?”

“He's really pretty, Daddy,” she hums. “Too bad he's so mean.”

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna fix that.” Another kiss, then a long lick all the way from the corner of her jaw to the outer shell of her ear, and she squeals and moans, grasps his wrist. Both his wrists, his busy hands. He ignores her, his fingers moving at her tit and her pussy in a steady rhythm, catches her earlobe between his teeth and gives her a brief suck.

Rick is horrible. He's keenly aware of this fact. He's also aware that, at his worst, Daryl more than gives him a run for his money.

“Look at her.” Daryl purrs the words, a low feline rumble. A big cat doing exactly what it pleases. “Look at this pretty little girl. You want her, don't you? You know you do, you couldn't keep your dirty hands off her. Couldn't keep your dirty cock outta her. You're lucky I'm even lettin’ you _look_ at her.”

He doesn't mean to speak. It's probably yet another bad idea. But it's not an idea. It just fucking happens. _Shit,_ his gut knotting as soon as he does, but he’s not used to taking instruction, and he's scrambling. He exhales. “Daryl-”

“Shut the fuck up. You talk when I tell you to talk.” A growl receding seconds later into that self-satisfied purr. “Since you are, though…” He glances at Beth, who’s rocking against him to match the movements of his fingers, biting at her bottom lip, her face suffused with pleasure that refuses to let up or leave her be. “Tell her you're sorry. I'm givin’ you another chance. You make her believe you mean it, maybe this don't have to go no further after all.”

No hesitation this time. He ducks his head, but it's not remorse, feigned or otherwise. Truth is, he's not sorry. Could never _be_ sorry. _Little slut had it coming,_ he'll repeat that refrain to himself for however long this lasts, and also that _sweet girl deserves to feel so good._

Because she did. She does. She's amazing, spectacular, and he loves her so fucking much.

He's bowing his head because suddenly it's impossible to look. Not at Daryl, but at her in all her slutty little-girl glory, her plump lips parted as she gasps and her tits tortuously visible beneath her shirt and her legs spread so wide, the heaven waiting between them. 

The woman under all of that. Strong and brave and so beautiful.

He could never be anything but in awe of her.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, stares down at his cock, watches precome well and overflow his slit and drip in a single transluscent bead onto the floor.

“What’re you sorry for?”

“Calling her names.” He grits his teeth. This is already unbearable and he's in so much trouble, and the blood is coursing under his skin. “Making her suck me off. Fucking her.”

Daryl gives her nipple a firmer tweak, and she twists and squeaks. “You buy that?”

“N-no, Daddy.” But she's not even looking at Rick anymore, her head thrown back against Daryl’s shoulder and her chest heaving, her eyes wide and fixed on the ceiling. Saying whatever her Daddy wants. Making like he's doing this for her, but they all know that's not true.

Except it is.

Daryl shakes his head reproachfully and lowers his hand, begins to spider-walk it up under the hem of her shirt. “You heard her. The fuck am I gonna do with you?” He pauses, draws it out as he reaches Beth’s tit and toys with her nipple, switches to the other, switches back, and Rick loses his grip again. He shudders and a moan slips out of him, deep and trembling, and Daryl chuckles.

Beth echoes him, as shaky as Rick is.

“You should come first, baby. Since he didn't let you. You like that?” The hand in her shorts bunches and a little cry bursts out of her, and it's not hard to draw conclusions about what he's done. Her hot, wet pussy, the way her muscles tense up when he thrusts into her, as if she's attempting to keep him inside her as he pulls out. His fingers. His dick. She's _strong_ in there.

Not that she isn't strong everywhere.

“Please,” she breathes, worrying at the waistband of her shorts. “Please, Daddy, I wanna come so bad…”

“Aw, honey, you can. You're my good girl, you can have anythin' you want.” A long kiss beneath her ear, her throat, the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and he withdraws his hand from her shirt and joins the other at her middle. The wiggle of her hips as he pushes the shorts down and she shimmies to help him just about puts Rick down on his goddamn face. Because now he has to deal with those cute pink panties, and even more he has to deal with the extremely visible damp spot darkening the crotch - and then he has to deal with what comes into view as those follow her shorts, her hairless mound and her pouting pussy lips beneath, the inner creases of her thighs smeared with her arousal, and the wink of her asshole when she lifts her legs high and stretches them out.

He's practically drooling. His cock sure as hell is.

Daryl reaches down and uses two fingers to press her labia apart - her soft, soaked delights. “Keep your legs up, girl. Let him really see you, let him see how pretty your pussy is.” His gaze snaps back up and Rick winces, nearly cringes, and he doesn't blush, not _ever,_ but his cheeks and neck and chest feel like they're burning crisp from the inside out.

Then Daryl smiles, a faint and utterly evil sickle edge, and three words tip Rick forward onto his hands.

“Get over here.”

He crawls. He crawls in stuttering, jerky motions, his muscles barely responding to his brain’s hectic commands. His knees were already friction-burned but now it's worse, thin pain putting his need into sharper relief, the sensation of his cock swinging under his belly. He’ll feel this later. He’ll be able to look at it and _know_ what put that sensation there.

Again: _This is how it feels for him. This is how it is._

_This is how it is for her._

It feels like it takes him a fucking week to reach them. He can smell her a foot away, her wonderful musk, perfect mix of sweet and salt; he would guzzle her if he could, and it's running down into the crack of her ass as he stops, pushes up on his knees, drags in a breath. Takes her into his lungs and keeps her there. Greedy.

They can't stop him from being greedy.

Daryl is talking again. It's ridiculous how much Daryl is suddenly talking; it's not like he never does - he can keep up with Rick perfectly well in how he fires his affectionate abuse at her - but it's never like _this._ “You got any idea how nice I'm bein’ just lettin’ you near her? Fuckin’ hell, this is a _favor_ I'm doin’ you. Look at this pussy.” His thick finger pressing into her, and she quivers. “This is mine. This belongs to me. But I'm gonna let you have it anyway.” Beat of airless silence. “If you beg for it.”

 _Shit._ “Please.” It falls off his tongue, part of him appalled at how weak he sounds. “Please let me have it.”

“Beg me to let you lick it.”

“Fuck-” He swallows. Or tries; it doesn't work very well. “Please let me lick her pussy. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, _please._ ”

Daryl lifts his shining finger to Beth’s mouth, tracing the seam of her lips. “Open up, sweetheart. You know you taste so good.” Flash of his teeth at Rick, as she parts her lips and sucks at his fingertip. “I'm gonna fuck your mouth after you do. You get that?”

Rick squeezes his eyes shut and nods.

“Tell me you do.”

“I get it.”

“Tell me _what I'm gonna do._ ”

“You're gonna fuck my mouth,” he whispers, and the words aren't at all unfamiliar, but in this arrangement…

“And I'm gonna fuck your ass. You get that too? _Brother?_ ”

And this has already been established. But it's never been done to him, it _actually never has,_ and it hits him all at once like a fist in the back of the head. They've played with it. They've both used their tongues on him, and Daryl has finger-fucked him more than once. But never beyond that.

Never anything this big.

His whimper starts in the pit of his stomach, and it tangles him up on the way out.

Daryl rolls his eyes. “God, bitch, spit it out or I'm gonna skip right to it.”

Somehow he manages it, on a breath that rises just above the level of inaudible. “You’re gonna fuck my ass.”

“Didn't catch that.”

“You're gonna _fuck my ass,_ ” he sobs, and Beth raises her head and looks down at him and breaks into cascades of giggling.

“There you go. Knew you had it in you.” Daryl lays his paw-like hands against her knees, pins her legs wide. “Get your mouth on her pussy. Make her come real good and maybe I'll go easy.”

No, he won't.

Rick dives into her.

She gasps, tilts her hips up and rubs her pussy against his face, and he doesn't ease in; he shoves his tongue between her lips as far as it'll go, lapping at her entrance, pulling back to swirl around her clit. He loves to build slow, tie her down and key her up until she's writhing and crying, but now he's attacking her, sucking at her, closing his teeth so lightly on her, working his tongue down and down until he's millimeters from her asshole and back up. And Daryl must catch that, because he hooks his hands under her knees and lifts her even higher, tugs her legs back and practically folds her in half, and he doesn't have to deliver any additional instruction. Rick jams his face between her ass cheeks and licks her in fierce, rapid strokes, and she groans and murmurs _oh Daddy that feels so good,_ and every time Rick is able to glance up, Daryl’s eyes are shooting bolts straight into his head.

“He's doin’ a good job, princess?”

She bobs her head. “Mmhm. Daddy… Oh, but he's lickin’ me… He’s lickin’ me _there._ ”

“Your ass, sweetie? That's where he's doin’ it?” Over the sounds of his own slurping, Rick hears Daryl coo the words - indulgent father, gently teasing, gently coaxing. Drawing filth out of her so subtly that by the time it emerges into the light she won't recognize it as filth at all.

Another nod, followed by a heavy sigh that slides up into a whimper. “My- My ass. He didn't make me lick him there.”

“Yeah, he's got a lot to make up to you. Shit, anyone’d get down on their knees and beg to eat your sweet ass, baby girl. Long as he's makin’ you feel nice, that's all that matters.”

“He's makin’ me feel real nice, Daddy,” she says huskily, the last word strained when Rick switches from her ass back to her pussy and places all his attention on the swollen bud of her clit, closes his lips around it and sucks so carefully. “He’s- Oh, Daddy, he's makin’ me… He’s makin’ my pussy…”

Her voice is rising in pitch even as it decreases in volume, ascending into a breathy little whine. It's rising with the rest of her, with how high he's pushing her, and he can't stop the smile that stretches his own swollen lips. Smiling into her cunt, sweeping his tongue over her and over her, unable to care at all about the growing ache in his jaw.

“How he is makin’ your pussy feel, darlin’?” Soft wet smack of lips on skin; Rick imagines another kiss on her neck, her jawline, all that hot downy skin. And here he is, face buried between her legs, and he can't see how he's not making out best of the three of them in this scenario as it’s currently unfolding. “Tell me. Be my good girl and use your words, tell me how it is.”

She sighs. “He's makin’ me so tingly. All over me, he… _aah_ … My pussy feels so warm, Daddy, I think I'm gonna…”

“Gonna come for me? Yeah, baby, you do that. Fuck, I love watchin’ that, you're so cute when you come.” Sudden brisk nudge against Rick’s side and he hazards a glance downward; the toe of Daryl’s boot digging into his thigh, giving him an imperious prod. “You heard her. Make her come all over your dirty fuckin’ face. And you _better_ make it good for her.”

Not like he needs to be told, and not like he would have to be _ordered_ to make it as good for her as he can, but his stomach still flips at the words, and what they continue to imply. The threat. If he fucks up. If he doesn't perform according to what Daryl is expecting of him.

If Daryl decides, purely to amuse himself, that there's no way for Rick to perform according to those expectations at all.

But he can do this. There's a particular thing that always rockets her up in the end, almost without fail - tight, fast back-and-forth half circles over her clit with the tip of his tongue, a blur of movement that vibrates into her and wrings a choked sob from her throat. In the outer edges of his vision, Rick sees her slapping her hands over the knobs of Daryl’s wrists in a pure effort to hold on as she goes rigid and seems to coil, and then blossoms outward with a wail, bending her spine into a bow, her luscious thighs quaking. She floods his mouth with her climax - or maybe he's flooding it himself - and wet drips from his chin onto the tops of his knees as he braces himself against the couch and licks her through it.

He doesn't know if he's met whatever baseline requirements Daryl has decided to set. But he knows he's _made it good for her._ He separates his mouth from her pussy and leans his head against the back of her thigh, gasping, licking her off his lips.

_Pretty baby, oh, my little girl._

He gets a moment to rest. They all do. Beth going boneless in Daryl’s lap, Daryl shifting his hands from her knees to her tits and palming them slowly, soothingly, as he murmurs obscene endearments Rick can't quite make out.

Then Beth lets out a muffled _oof_ and laughs as Daryl rolls her off his lap and settles her comfortably onto the cushions, leaning up to kiss her brow before he pushes away, ignoring her little whine of mock-disappointment and her little hands reaching for him. In purely practical terms, he's done with her.

It's all about Rick now.

Daryl levers himself to his feet at a pace that feels as if it proceeds by inches, agonizing, and Rick tips back onto his heels and stares upward. For the most part he and Daryl are evenly matched in size, but right now Daryl seems _massive,_ looming twice as high as he did before, a tower of malevolent lust scanning him over like he's meat, like he's something to be consumed, like he's exactly what Daryl suggested to his little girl: a plaything. A toy.

His face is still smeared with Beth’s pussy, interior of his mouth still coated with her juices, but all over again, the moisture flees and he's left in a desert.

He never could have been ready for this. Never.

“You remember what I said.” Daryl’s hands move to his belt, tracing the buckle though he doesn't yet undo it. He tilts his head, and that's when Rick understands just how closely Daryl has been watching him every second their positions have been reversed. Watching and learning. Internalizing every detail of how Rick operates, now ready to put it into practice. “Gonna feed you my cock now. You're gonna take it as hard and fast as I wanna give it to you, and when I shoot my come down your throat you're gonna thank me for it.”

Rick struggles to swallow, manages it somehow, nods. Please, _please_ let Daryl not demand he say anything else, because he's genuinely not sure he can. His mouth already feels well-used, his tongue and jaw throbbing gently, his lips puffy like he's been slapped, and it's nowhere _near_ done being made use of. Rick crouches, drawing ragged breaths, and watches as Daryl undoes his belt and moves to his button, his zipper, pulls it down and reaches inside.

It's not like he's never sucked Daryl off before. He's done it a hundred times. He fucking loves it, loves doing Daryl just the way he does Beth and creeping through a gradual build, making Daryl crazy, making him moan and sob and plead. He never thought he would like sucking cock this much, and then he sucked Daryl Dixon’s.

 This isn't going to be like that. Watching, watching with his gut knotting around itself and his blood waterfalling through his veins, as Daryl tugs himself free and curls his hand around his shaft, squeezes himself and releases a guttural moan as his eyes slip closed.

His cock - thick, flushed dark, foreskin pulled tight and precome smeared slick and glistening. Gorgeous. It's a _gorgeous_ fucking cock, and Rick sighs and is completely positive that when he looks at it right now, his expression is close to wistful.

Must be, because Daryl laughs and reaches for Rick with his free hand, palms the back of his head. “Be patient. You watchin’, baby?”

“Mm, yeah, Daddy.” She sounds sleepily gratified, so much so that it would be easy to miss the evil beneath her tone. “I love your cock so much, Daddy.” And abruptly she's pouting, Rick getting flashes of her face behind Daryl, her pooched lips. “You're giving him a _nice_ thing. I love suckin’ you.”

“Yeah, but I'm nice when you do it, princess.” Another one of those lazy, catlike smiles. “Mostly. I'm not gonna be nice to him.” The hand he's resting at the back of Rick’s head tenses, fingertips pressing into Rick’s scalp, gripping him and pushing him in both at once. Positioning his dick with the other, inches from Rick’s lips. Clear bead of precome welling at his slit. “Don't you fuckin’ move. Don't you do nothin’ unless I say.”

Rick doesn't move. Waits, eyelids bizarrely heavy, all of him bizarrely heavy, as if Daryl is draining all remaining resistance out of him through his fingers. Everything is blurring and running together like watercolors, and then Daryl uses his dick to paint a line of precome all around Rick’s mouth, stops at his bottom lip, huffs a laugh and slaps the head against Rick’s cheek. Rick tenses, shuts his eyes again, and again Daryl hits him with it - really no more than a firm tap, but something about it sears abrupt humiliation through him.

He should despise it. He doesn't.

Fuck, he really doesn't.

Daryl is holding him in place, nudging once more at his lips. Rick tastes slick salt and instinctively his tongue emerges in a darting flick, tentative, and Daryl’s laugh is rougher.

“Open up, you twisted fuck. You know what's good for you, you take all of me.”

Rick parts his lips but Daryl is already forcing them open, forcing his way in, a dense weight pushing mercilessly deeper. He can't stop himself; he gropes at Daryl’s legs, clings to the sagging folds of his pants, and feels a genuine stab of fear. He might be additionally punished for this. But Daryl only groans as he bottoms out against the back of Rick’s throat, retreats as Rick gags, gives him a split second to catch his breath as he thrusts back in.

It’s reasonable to think Daryl might start hard and fast and keep on going that way. And it _is_ hard, and it's so deep that he gags the second time, the third, his abs a tense wall as he attempts to relax everything from the chest up. But it's not fast. Daryl is fucking his mouth in long, smooth rolls of his hips, head tipped back and mouth open as his breath rushes shallowly in and out of his lungs - relentless but not yet _mean._

No way is that continuing.

“ _Shit,_ that's good. You watchin’, honey?” Daryl is talking again. It’s fucking _ludicrous_ that Daryl is talking so much, was before and is more so every minute: this man who barely says more than three or four sentences at a stretch even at his most comfortable - not only because words don't come easily to him but because Rick has known for a long time that Daryl Dixon is skeptical of the utility of his words in general and says no more than he deems necessary. Yet now he won't _shut up,_ like something in him has cracked down the middle, and Rick recognizes his own words coming out of Daryl’s mouth.

Quick study as a rule, and he's had a lot of time to take himself to school.

“I'm watchin’, Daddy.” Her voice is husky, the couch creaking as she shifts, and though Rick can't see her from where he's kneeling, his imagination can do the work for him. Her sitting up, legs spread, shirt rumpled and her pigtails swinging. Her big blue eyes glued to him. “He's doin’ okay?”

“He's doin’ fine, baby. Not as good as you, but.” His breathing is getting ragged, very slight quiver in his muscles. He's fighting to slow himself down. Maybe even a little bit of a challenge; Rick hollows his cheeks and swirls his tongue along Daryl’s shaft, gets a growl and a particularly fierce thrust for his pains and the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes overflow.

Daryl is going to fuck him. Daryl is going to fuck him with _this._

All at once his mouth is empty and he's racked with coughing, pitching forward and catching himself on one hand as the support of Daryl’s thighs vanishes. He realizes that his eyes are open only after he blinks and the world swims back into focus, and he's looking at a long rope of spit dripping from his chin to the rug and darkening the fabric, the line thin and delicate as spider silk.

He's beaten down, naked and on his knees, used mouth drooling. His skin is on fire from the inside out.

That word. The one Daryl used with him before.

As if Daryl can read his mind: “C’mere, bitch. Finish what you started.”

He lifts his head. Daryl has returned to the couch and is sitting there with his legs apart and his cock jutting up from his fist, eyelids drooping comfortably, his arm wrapping around Beth as she nestles into his side. Exactly as Rick imagined her looking: slutty little girl glowing with sex, her hairless pussy flashing pink between her legs and a faux-innocent smile playing around her lips and eyes. As he gazes at her, panting like a fucking dog, she slips her thumb into her mouth and sucks, and flutters her lashes, and her beautiful smile breaks through like a sunrise.

They've taken this to some truly fucked up levels. But she's bringing it like she never has before, and it's difficult to conceive that he still has enough blood in his brain to keep his lungs working.

Once more he starts crawling - only a few feet this time but his raw knees lodge a pathetic protest. Focused on both of them every inch of the way, and he recognizes it as pure taunting when Daryl works his hand under Beth’s bent leg and strokes over her pussy lips, making her breath catch and shake when he circles her clit.

He's there, crouching between Daryl’s knees, and Christ, he can smell them both. The way they mingle delightfully into one scent, cock and cunt, this man and this woman who he loves, and every cell in his body is suddenly _screaming_ for his mouth to be filled.

“There you go,” Daryl murmurs, unmistakably affectionate, takes Rick by the hair and draws him down, entering him at the same moment his fingers enter Beth’s pussy with a wet squelch and her breathy _ohhh_.

Before, he was letting Daryl make use of him, passive except for what it took to accommodate him. Now he's eager, sliding down as far as he can before he chokes and lifts back up, moaning as he settles his hands on Daryl’s thighs and shifts himself so he can take him even deeper, and again he feels that rush of embarrassed heat coupled with a rush of strange satisfaction as Daryl - with clearly unfeigned and pleased surprise - growls, “ _Fuck,_ yeah, brother, look at you. You like it? You like suckin’ me off? You need to get you some practice, though. I'm gonna make sure you do. I'm gonna show you how to do it almost as good as her.” He pauses a beat, gulps down a breath as Beth releases a fragment of a whine. “Gonna show you just like you showed me, brother. Way back when. I'm gonna return the goddamn favor.”

It jolts him, twitches his cock all the way down to his core. This is more than fucked up. This is utterly _depraved,_ and if he doesn't get to touch himself soon he genuinely thinks he might scream. Beth is letting out high, rhythmic moans, the cushion compressing as she rocks against Daryl’s fingers, and Daryl is fucking up into Rick’s mouth with real intent, grunting pleasure as he pulls Rick’s hair hard enough to send stinging ripples down his spine.

“Yeah, bitch… Make me come. C’mon, you show her how much you want it, you suck my fuckin’ come out my balls now, _shit._ ” His head falls back and he bares his teeth, fucking upward even faster when Rick gags and heaves and scrabbles at Daryl’s knees. “Watch this, baby. You know how much you like watchin’ me, I'm gonna shoot right down his fuckin’ _throat_ -”

She inhales sharply as Daryl stiffens and snarls, and then convulses once, twice, pulsing hot and salty and Rick desperately swallowing to keep up - and not successfully, come and spit spilling from the corners of his mouth and dribbling onto his chest. He's struggling, all instinct, but Daryl keeps him where he is, and when his watering eyes flick up to them Rick sees Daryl angling her head to his, tangling their tongues as he pumps two fingers into her.

One big happy family.

He stays there, tears streaming down his face and come smearing his skin, as Daryl’s breathing gradually deepens and slows, the sounds of his fingers in Beth’s pussy slowing as well. Softening, his cock and his hand both, and at last he allows Rick to raise his head and fill his lungs, every inhalation edged with pain.

Still erect. Worse than ever. Feels like he might simply split his fucking skin.

In a rasping murmur: “Thank me.”

He coughs. Wipes at his face, dipping his chin. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Beth lets out a happy hum. “You still gonna fuck him, Daddy?”

“Bet your cute little ass, princess.” Daryl looks down at him, and the fingers tangled in his hair shift, stroking. Close to gentle. “Gotta wait for a bit, though, till I can. Meantime we should get him ready.”

“Ready?” Her expression is all rapt curiosity. “Why?”

“‘cause his ass is tighter than your tiny pussy, sweetie. Believe it or not.” He's sitting up, absently tucking his dick back into his pants, though he doesn't bother with the zipper. “We gotta stretch him out first. He's gotta pay for what he did, but we don't wanna hurt him too much, do we?”

“I guess not.” She frowns slightly, thoughtful. “How’re we gonna get him ready?”

“I'll show you. You know that stuff in the bottle we use sometimes? Upstairs? Run get that for me.”

“Okay.” With a spry hop she's off the couch and on her feet, giggling when Daryl gives her bare ass a playful swat and scampering past Rick toward the stairs. Her thumping feet - exaggerated, like a kid’s might be when they're beginning to assert their presence in the world through the racket of their passage - and the soft squeak of the bedroom door’s hinges. Needs oiling, Rick thinks dimly, and then Daryl is standing over him and pushing him onto his back with the rough pressure of a boot in the center of his chest. He sprawls with a hard exhale, legs fallen open and the head of his cock bobbing into his belly, leaving a shining spot of precome behind.

“Scoot back and get your legs up and fuckin’ stay there. ‘less you really do want this to hurt.”

He does what he's told. More rugburn on his ass and elbows as he moves, staring, hauling in air through his parted, trembling lips. Daryl is lowering himself, coolly observing him, smacking the side of his thigh and knocking a yelp out of him.

“Higher.”

Higher, yeah. Okay. It's a stretch in several different places but he manages to hook his hands into the creases beneath his knees and use the leverage to fold himself, hit all over again by how utterly exposed he is like this. How unprotected. He's pummeled by it, how he's displaying not only his cock and balls but his asshole, _all_ of him, giving Daryl enough access to do whatever he wants to them.

He shudders. Swallows over a tongue and through a throat both waterless as salt.

“Don't worry.” Through the blur he perceives Daryl’s smile, that same lazy wickedness, as Daryl extends his hand to Rick’s mouth and presses a finger past the barrier of his lips. “You don't fuckin’ deserve it but I'm still gonna make it good for you. When I stick my dick in your ass you're gonna love it even more than my dick in your mouth. You’ll see.” Fingertip pressing down on his tongue. “Get it wet for me. C’mon.”

He tries. Sort of does. Not enough, he's sure of it, and he whines when Daryl withdraws his finger and lowers it between Rick’s legs and behind his balls, half articulated pleading. For him to wait for Beth to come back - that's her feet on the steps now. Wait for the lube, _please,_ finger against him, careful pressure, but it's so _thick,_ and he's scared. He truly is.

The memory slamming into him: Daryl exactly like this, Rick where he is now, the fear in Daryl’s eyes. The fear that melted into a crashing wave of pleasure as Rick pushed into his body, hand firm around his cock and jerking him in an easy rhythm as he fucked him, his impossibly tight ass and all his corded muscle, yielding to him like a woman never could.

It seemed to feel good to him. Very good. When he came he shot up to his damn chest and Beth gasped _oh my God._ Like Rick was fucking the come out of him in the most mechanically literal possible way.

Now Daryl is pressing, circling, teasing him, and part of him is aware that Beth’s footsteps are approaching but the rest of him is a brilliantly sparking webwork of nerves, flaring as Daryl coaxes his sphincter into the beginnings of relaxation. He focuses on that to the exclusion of everything else, respiration steady, every breath easing the stretch. Eyes closed; Beth suddenly nearby, and the sound of uncapping, a few seconds and Daryl’s finger returns much slicker, cool, and Rick jumps and whimpers.

“Pay attention, baby,” Daryl purrs. “Pay attention real good. I want you to see how I do this.”

“How come, Daddy?”

“‘cause I'm gonna do it to you.” Her naked gasp of alarm, and Daryl’s dry, rolling laugh. “Not yet. But sometime. Maybe soon.” Rick’s eyelids flutter and in an indistinct flicker he sees Daryl leaning over to kiss his little girl’s forehead. _His little daughter,_ who he's corrupting with gleeful enthusiasm. “I promise it feels nice, sweetie. And if you don't like it, we can stop.”

She gazes down at Rick, fascinated, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. “But you ain't gonna stop if he doesn't like it, are you, Daddy?”

“Oh, I'm pretty sure he's gonna.” Soft laugh. Everything is warm red-black again, except for the light dancing in the middle distance, the bizarre pleasure swelling under his diaphragm. “But if he doesn't? Nah. He's gotta take it either way. ‘s only fair.”

The last word isn't even out before he's nosing his fingertip past the ring of muscle and inside, and it's slow and careful and it doesn't hurt at all except for a low and pleasant burn, but Rick cries out anyway - not even so much because of how it feels but because of what it _is._

On his back and spread wide, as helpless as if he's tied down, defenseless against this violation.

This _completely delicious_ violation.

On some level he's conscious of the fact that Daryl has stopped and it doesn't feel as if he's penetrated particularly deep, his free hand pressed flat against Rick’s stomach above his cock - and for some reason it's grounding. Maybe even comforting. He hauls in a breath and blinks away more tears - there's some wetness at least - and keens deep in the barrel of his ribcage as Daryl moves again.

Big, it feels so _big,_ and sure, Daryl has done this much to him before - under his own instruction - but it might as well be his first time.

“Good,” Daryl breathes. “That's good. Relax, brother. I should bust you open right now but I'm gonna take care of you.”

Of course he is.

Rick tosses his head from side to side, pained animal vocalizations vibrating out of him - but there still isn't any pain as Daryl stops and pulls almost all the way out and pushes in again, again, even deeper, slightly rotating and curling his finger. And there's something inside Rick there that he already knows feels _great_ when it's touched right, can feel fucking _incredible,_ and Daryl is touching it now, barely nudging it but it's enough to burst that distant light into immediate brightness as pleasure surges through him.

Daryl barks a laugh, and Beth echoes him in obvious delight. “See, told you he'd love it. Hand me the bottle, baby. I'm gonna give him two.”

He tenses as the panic swims briefly back in, but it's overwhelmed by that thick pleasure - thick as Daryl’s fingers - as more of the burning stretch announces the promised second one, and another wave of sweetness as Daryl starts to fuck him with a steady, unhurried pace.

“Why dontcha go sit on his face, princess? Put him to work. He ain't doin’ nothin’ except lyin’ here.”

“Okay, Daddy.” Her voice a cheerful sing-song, and he imagines her skipping if she was on her feet, but instead she crawls around his side - the shadow of her body and the cornsilk of her hair as the sun catches it - and the scent of her pussy as she rises on her knees and maneuvers herself over him. Shining pink descending on him, her fat lips dangling tantalizingly above his mouth, and then she's on him, sighing and flowing into him when he parts those lips with his tongue.

“Yeah, eat her out. Just like that, bitch. Jesus, you're a fuckin’ slut for it.” Daryl scissors his fingers, the stretch flaring and easing, and Rick moans into Beth’s pussy and sucks one at a time at her labia until she's swiveling her hips and releasing an _mmm_ that he feels all the way in his jaw. “My dick’s gettin’ stiff for you. Gonna give it to you soon. You're still tight as _she_ was first time I fucked her, but if she could take it, you sure as hell can.”

 _No,_ he thinks, lapping at her clit as she braces her hands on his chest and digs in with her nails. Kitten claws. _Christ, please no,_ and _oh my god yes yes yes._

 _Fuck my ass._ He made Daryl say it. Working him open, licking his balls the whole time, Daryl fisting the sheets and just about weeping. _Fuck my ass with your big cock, please. I want it so bad. Please._

_Please._

_“Ahh-_ You think he's ready, Daddy?” Purr of her own, nearly a growl to put Daryl’s to shame. “I wanna… I wanna watch you. I wanna watch you right now.”

Daryl rumbles a laugh. “Both of us play with him at the same time? Baby girl, that's a good idea. You're so smart.” All at once his fingers are gone and Rick feels ridiculously _empty,_ his whole body needy for what Daryl was giving him - needy for more of it, and he spreads himself even wider, and his moan is still muffled but he locates some additional volume.

It's all he has.

A period of rustling, a couple of dull thumps, and then the bottle again; slurping sound as Daryl spills lube into his hand. Beth’s breathy _mm yeah Daddy_ and something slick nudging him - something far too thick to be a finger. Calloused hand once more on his belly and hot salty-sweet darkness cocooning his head; he gulps her juices down, quivering all over, and then twists and whines and arches violently upward as Daryl slowly penetrates him.

It shouldn't be that different from a finger - should merely be more _._ But it is different. He's being invaded, impaled, tightening instinctively where he was loosening before, the burn expanding from his ass through his nerves and all the way to his head. He grips his own legs and shudders, sobbing into Beth’s cunt with a gurgling noise that's more like a slobber. Daryl isn't _busting him open,_ but he's pitiless, pushing in and in, filling him so completely that Rick imagines him pushing out through his fucking _throat_.

He's not the only one racked by shudders. The trembling in Daryl’s muscles is bleeding into him, the stutter in his lungs, words hissing past his teeth like a multitude of forked tongues.

“Fuck, you’re still so tight, brother. I love it. I fuckin’ _love_ your ass, it's almost as sweet as her pussy.” The wash of relief as Daryl pulls back, hopeless scorching pleasure as he thrusts in. “Like you were made to take it, you dirty fuckin’ whore. You deserve every inch of it. Gonna make you sorry for what you did to my little girl.”

He is. He is sorry. He's not, she had it coming, they both did, every cruel thing he's ever done to them and every cruel thing he’ll do again the second he gets the chance - Jesus, he’ll spend _hours_ torturing them for this - but in this moment he's so damn sorry, and it feels so damn good, trying to get the words out as Beth leans over his chest and rides his face, and he can't and it doesn't matter.

They were never going to forgive him.

Beth shivers, cants her pelvis down and grinds against his chin. “Oh, _yeah…_ Put it in him, Daddy. Make him feel it. He's a _bad man,_ he-”

“He's a bad man but he's a great fuck. _Shit,_ baby… I bet you’re gonna be even better when I do you but he's real fuckin’ good.” Faster, Daryl’s harsh grunts as his bare thighs smack against Rick’s asscheeks and rattle his spine, his hands swatting Rick’s aside to shove his legs almost flush with his chest. Rick gropes mindlessly at the carpet, at Beth’s legs - those smooth, lovely legs, gangly as a fawn’s. He holds onto her and licks her with such ferocious swipes that he vaguely considers the possibility that he might sprain his tongue. But she's close, gyrating and releasing those quivering moans that he so dearly loves earning from her, soaking in her nectar like a butterfly.

“You gonna come, princess? Yeah, you come, you let me watch you. Give it to him, he don't deserve it but you give that sweet cream to him now…”

With a wordless yell she does, jamming herself down so hard that she's smothering him and he's practically clawing at her, body whipping itself into panic even as he drinks her down. The gush of her orgasm into him, Daryl’s cock pounding his ass, and abruptly he's aware of his own cock bouncing against his lower belly and he thinks he might honestly come from that contact alone.

But he's not going to have to worry about it. Beth rolls off him with a groan, and his eyes are stinging and cloudy with sweat and her juices, but he turns his head in time to see her sprawled on the floor with a happy smile curling her lips, and then Daryl gazing down at him, teeth bared and damp hair hanging in his face, naked with the sunlight gilding the wet, straining curves of his muscles.

He's so fucking beautiful.

“Watch me, girl,” he snarls, and with a ruthless jerk he yanks Rick’s body higher, forcing his back and neck into a painful arch as his hips slam forward like a jackhammer. Rick tries not to, tries so hard, but finally surrenders to the broken wail ripping its way up through his throat.

And it shouldn't be possible, but Daryl only goes faster.

“Take it, you filthy slut. I'm gonna fuck you so hard you won't walk for _days._ ” He flashes a grin, and through the haze of pain and pleasure Rick recognizes it as his own. “And then I'm gonna- _Christ,_ I'm gonna fuck you again. Gonna fuck you over and over. Your ass is mine anytime I want it. You're _my_ bitch now.” Pause the length of which Rick can’t hope to gauge, and then: “Say it. Say what you are.”

Words? _Seriously?_ Rick’s mouth moves - the sounds that emerge are incoherent and agonized. And then Daryl’s hand is clamped over his neck, exploding sparks in his vision. “Fuckin’ _say it.”_

“I’m-” He chokes, tries to get his fingers around Daryl’s wrist and fails. It's as if his body has simply given up. _Fuck it._ “I'm your bitch.”

“Say you're sorry.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Nah, you ain't.” Blessed relief from the pressure on his neck, but then a lightning strike of pain that he recognizes seconds later as the flat of Daryl’s palm landing a vicious slap against his cheek. “Try again.”

“I’m _sorry._ ” Hoarse yell that cracks at the end, his hands falling limp to his sides, and a flicker of Beth stripped and reclining beside him, head propped on one hand, teasing her own nipples and observing this ordeal with blatant gratification. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… Fuck, I _swear._ ”

Cool drops of sweat from the ends of Daryl’s hair spatter across his skin like rain as Daryl looks up and to the side, searching Beth’s face. “You believe him, princess?”

Her expression turns musing as she scans him up and down. Daryl has briefly eased the pace, but now he's moving with sharp, deep snaps of his hips, just as bad on a whole new level. Rick is about to plead with her, implore her favor - tell her he’ll do _anything,_ anything at all, forever, he’ll be her fucking _slave_ and she’ll own him, body and mind and soul, if only she takes pity on him and makes it stop-

But he doesn't want it to stop, is the thing.

Which is why he comes dangerously close to protesting when she - reluctantly - nods and waves a hand like royalty indulging a mildly amusing underling. “Yeah, Daddy. I think he means it.”

“You hear that?” Daryl pants. Suddenly, so suddenly that Rick flings his head back and screams, a rough, warm hand is circling around his dick and clenching, and he has no idea why he isn't coming already. “She forgives you, you lucky fuck. So you get to come.” Jerking Rick in rapid strokes as fast as he's fucking him, the familiar tremble seizing him. Seizing them both. “Come with me, brother… Yeah, shit, I'm gonna fill you up, here it comes, _now,_ you-”

With a violent arch and a howl, Daryl is pumping hot into him, but he barely feels it. He's coming like a goddamn seizure, his head slamming against the floor and spit running from the corner of his mouth, a roaring storm engulfing his brain. As if it's happening in some other dimension, he's aware of something warm and slippery spurting over his ribs, and then a rough mouth sealed over his lips, the prickle of scruff and sweat-salt as a strong tongue fucks its way into him.

It's gone. Another replacing it, so much softer, a far more delicate little tongue gliding alongside his, delicate little teeth scraping his jaw. Then the first mouth again, a confusion of the two, and he lies there under their gentle, kind assault, twitching and whimpering with aftershocks, as they kiss him down.

As they forgive him.

_~_

Later, holding him between them, hands working over his skin in lazy caresses. Somehow, like it often does, their breathing has slipped into a near-sync, and he floats dreamily in it, letting himself be touched without touching them back. This is for him, this part, the heat of their naked bodies and how he fits with both of them when they wrap him up and pull him close. They're all still on the floor, but he's too exhausted to be uncomfortable. Too exhausted and too sore in far too many other places.

Sore, and not sure when he was last happy like this.

They should know how he feels, if they can't tell already - which he's certain they can. He smiles weakly, turns his head and nuzzles at one of them. Not sure which, and it doesn't matter. _I'm sorry._

A quiet laugh and a light pinch at his nipple. Two sets of lips graze over his. He expects the response. They know him so well by now.

_No, you're not._

No. He's not.


End file.
